Bopolu City – The Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) earned more votes than Unity Party in Gbarpolu County for the first time since it began participating in Liberia’s presidential elections in 2005.
The new CDC is a coalition of three political parties including the National Patriotic Party and Liberia People Democratic Party with the Congress for Democratic Change at its core.
National Elections Commission (NEC) final results announced on December 29, 2017, showed that CDC obtained total votes of 12,702 representing 88.2% while Unity Party earning 9,126, which represent of the total vote cast in the runoff from 133 polling places across the county.
In Gbarpolu, of the 48,650 total registrants, according to the NEC’s final voters roll report, 22,442 turned out to vote.
The results were different in both 2011 and 2005 presidential runoff elections.
During the last two presidential elections, the people of Gbarpolu supported the Unity Party under outgoing president, Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and defeated Ambassador Winston A. Tubman of the CDC with 15,098 (91.0%) to 1,495 (9.0%) votes out of the 17,103 turnouts at the 105 polling places on November 8, 2011.
The first time president-elect Weah contested for the presidency in 2005, he lost against the UP. The majority of voters in Gbarpolu County rejected his candidacy.
With a total of 12,621 voters participating at 61 polling places on October 11, 2005’s presidential runoff, UP earned 9,666 votes or 78.7% against CDC’s 2,611 votes or 21.3%.
In this year’s elections, CDC has proven to be a stronger and successfully resilient in Gbarpolu County’s political battle, also winning electoral districts one and two representative seats.
Already, the NEC has announced the final 2017 presidential runoff results declaring the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) as the winner over the Unity Party.
The CDC candidate won 61.5 percent of the total votes over the ruling Unity Party who obtained 38.5 percent of the total valid votes.
From a total turnout of 1,218,120 eligible registered voters at Tuesday’s polls, invalid votes accounted for 2.3 percent of all votes.
Except for Lofa County, where Boakai hails from, Weah maintained his lead in all counties.
Upon the announcement by NEC, the CDC Gbarpolu Campaign Chair, Dwannah Kamara described the results as the will of the people of Gbarpolu.
“The people of this county have spoken to the reality, that they just want change, nothing beyond that. We have to respect the will and pleasure of the people of Gbarpolu,” he said.
“They have had twelve years of the Unity party leadership and they believed that they need change now for different leadership to come and administer the affairs of the country”.
For his party, the UP campaign secretary, Samuel Sorpor has thanked the people of Gbapolu for turning out to vote.
“We did not really expect this turnout that means we expected more people to have voted but however we must say thank you to the citizens of Gbarpolu during this critical electoral period in our country,” Sorpor said.
Report By: Henry B. Gboluma, Jr.