Liberia: Last batch of ballot papers arrive from Ghana

06 Octobre 2017

MONROVIA, Liberia, October 6 (Infosplusgabon) - Authorities at Liberia's National Elections Commission (NEC) on Friday confirmed that the final batch of ballot papers for the representative election has arrived in the country from Ghana.

NEC Executive Director, Lamin Lighe, received the consignment that arrived by air Thursday via the Roberts International Airport.

The batch constitutes the remaining 26 of 73 pallets. The NEC had on September 28 received 47 pallets of the consignment.

The total number of ballots in the overall consignment is over three million pieces, NEC officials said.

The latest consignment was conveyed to the NEC headquarters Thursday under heavy police escort.

The NEC had disclosed that it spent US$1.5 million to print both the presidential and legislative ballots in Slovenia and Ghana respectively.

It said there are 3,053,435 presidential and 3,112,725 representative ballots for the 2.1 million registered voters.

NEC calls the difference in the printed ballots and registered voters “contingency ballots,” assuring that the excess would be properly managed and safeguarded.

However, this has raised eyebrows among political parties, analysts and other poll watchers, spewing allegations, suspicion and credibility questions.

But, with four days to Election Day, distribution of the ballots to 5,390 polling places around the country before D-day on Tuesday, October 10, will be a Herculean task.

NEC said earlier it was delivering ballots and other polling material mainly by road, and helicopters of the United Nations Mission in Liberia to hard-to-reach areas of the country.

But owing to bad roads for the vehicles and inclement weather for the choppers, the commission could face a daunting task of getting the ballots to all polling centers in time for voting on October 10.

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/LMP/GABON 2017

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