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| Applauding Liberian Voters For Their Patriotic Turnout |
| Published on October 18, 2011 | Email To Friend Print Version
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An estimated more than one million Liberian voters peacefully turned out on Tuesday, October 11, 2011, to vote in the country's second post war democratic election since the war ended only eight years ago.
Tuesday's general and presidential elections was also the country's first back-to-back in the last at least three decades.
With a very unanticipated mass turned out as compared to the September 23 National Referendum, Liberians began showing up at polling stations as early as 5 am before voting started at least three hours later.
Voters gathered with enthusiasm and cast their ballots peacefully with no major incident of conflict or electoral related violence reported as expected as a result of statements from some political actors during the campaigning period.
Voting was generally peaceful as major political archrivals were seeing standing by and behind each others in queues (some were even eating biscuits and fried plantain together), and were seeing going home together in some areas.
Despite the intermittent rainfalls in many areas across the country, voters remained focused, committed and dedicated to casting their ballots, exercising their democratic franchise and at the same time showing a strong sense of patriotism.
It is in this light that we want to commend the many voters who thronged their various centers to participate in the decision making process of this country.
So far, you have proved the critics wrong that elections would not have been peaceful and that turnouts would have been poor like the national referendum.
You have signaled to the world the Liberians are serious people—people who want to go forward ever and backward never, people who want to build their country and never to destroy it, and people who believe that the ballot is better than the bullet in changing or maintaining their leaders.
However, as we commend each and every Liberian voter for the maturity the exhibited at Tuesday's polling, we equally call on them to continue to display these peaceful attitudes and maturity and wait on the National Elections Commission to announce the results.
We appeal that the rule of law be followed, just in case some one is displeased with the results. Never again must we resort to violence in solving our problems or in seeking redress to our grievances.
Once more, we applaud all Liberians who turned out peacefully to participate in Tuesday's elections.
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