ECOWAS Commission President tasks Liberia polls observers - ECOWAS Commission President James Victor Gbeho has called on the 150-member ECOWAS Election Observation Mission being deployed to monitor Liberia’s presidential and legislative polls on Tuesday to be neutral and impartial as well as ambassadors of democracy. “As you get ready to deploy to various parts of the country, I wish to remind us about the distinction between running an election and observing an election and the need to show your best sides to all sides,” an ECOWAS Commission statement quoted him as telling the observers at a special briefing at the City Hall in Monrovia on Friday.

He emphasized that the elections were of tremendous interest, not only to ECOWAS but also to the international community, and within the context of the regional organization’s determined efforts to entrench democracy and good governance in West Africa.

ECOWAS Observation Mission head Attahiru Jega expressed appreciation to the commission for his appointment and pledged the team would tackle the “assignment with all the seriousness it deserves”.

Also present at the briefing session were Gen. Seth Obeng, ECOWAS Special Envoy to Liberia, and Maj.-Gen. Mahamane Toure, ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security.

President Gbeho, who had earlier in the day visited the National Elections Commission of Liberia (NEC) where he presented Professor Jega to the NEC chair, Mr. James Fromayan, expressed confidence that the polls would be violence-free, transparent, fair and credible elections.

Liberia’s last presidential elections, held in November 2005 following the country’s protracted civil war, saw Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf emerge as Africa’s first elected female President.

She and 15 other candidates are contesting Tuesday's polls, the outcome of which is critical for the consolidation of the gains made in Liberia and other ECOWAS member states over the last decade in the entrenchment of peace, stability and good governance.

The ECOWAS observers will be deployed to different counties of Liberia for the poll monitoring exercise.

Pana 10/10/2011