Statement on Provision of Candidate List for the Special Senatorial

LEON is deeply concerned that, of the 118 Candidates nominated to the National Election  Commission for the Senatorial elections only 20 are women, just 17%. This falls far short of adequate representation of women, who make up more than half of Liberia’s population. Only one party has reached the 30% minimum target for either gender set in the New  Election Law, section 4.5 (c)1. LEON again calls upon the NEC to demand what endeavors other parties made to find female candidates and to ask for them to amend their nomination lists if there is insufficient evidence that they had women involved in primaries and have tried to support women aspirants within the party and to ready them to stand for election.

Analysis of the candidate lists shows that CPP has five women candidates out of 15 and  MPC managed two women out of eight, and the Rainbow Alliance, two women out of nine candidates. However, CDC, nominated no women at all out of its 14 candidates, not even one in Nimba where it has no candidate at all. And yet seven women are standing as independents. LEON has seen no evidence that CDC made any endeavors to ensure that they reached the minimum 30% target.