In Summary:
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Deputy House Speaker Thomas Fallah claimed on ELBC that the Unity Party’s vote share in Lofa County declined to about 63 percent in the 2023 elections.
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We have reviewed the National Elections Commission data, which shows that Unity Party candidate Joseph Boakai received 84.21 percent of the vote in Lofa County in 2017, compared to 64.6 percent in 2023.
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Based on these figures, Fallah’s claim is mostly correct, as the party’s support in the county declined significantly between the two elections.
On January 5, Deputy House Speaker, Hon. Thomas Fallah, claimed in an ELBC interview that the Unity Party’s vote tally in Lofa County decreased to about 63% in the 2023 elections, attributing the decrease to his involvement in the election in the county that year.
Representative Fallah made this claim to showcase his political strength in the County based on his support for the administration of President Joseph Boakai.
Fallah was expelled by the CDC in December 2024, following recommendations from the party’s Grievance and Ethics Committee.
The Deputy Speaker has come under staunch criticism over his key role in the questionable removal of former Speaker Cllr. J. Fonati Koffa of the CDC.
The Claim
An excerpt of Rep. Fallah statement reads: “You know I led the troop, when we went there, we reduced Unity Party to 60 – 63%.”
Rating Justification
To verify this claim, we reviewed the past election results in the county for the years 2017 and 2023.
According to data from the National Elections Commission, Joseph Nyumah Boakai, the Unity Party candidate in the 2017 election, received 84.21% of the total votes in the County, compared to the 15.79% obtained by CDC Candidate George Weah in the runoff election.
Additionally, UP candidate Joseph Boakai obtained 64.6% of the votes in the county, while CDC Candidate George Weah got 35.4% of the total votes in the county in 2023.
This shows that the UP votes declined from 84% in 2017 to 64.6% in 2023.
Conclusion
Based on these findings, we conclude that Deputy House Speaker Thomas Fallah’s claim is mostly correct.
Official NEC data confirm that the Unity Party’s vote share in Lofa County declined from 84.21 percent in 2017 to 64.6% percent in 2023.
