-Genuine Solidarity, Or Naked Quest For Power?
They abandoned their busy schedules in Monrovia and drove all the way to Zwedru, Grand Gedeh County, in Liberia’s Southeastern Region, purposely to honor invitations extended them to participate in events that marked the 22nd anniversary of the main opposition, Congress for Democratic Change, CDC, of former President, George Weah.
Ironically, among the politicians that turned out were some of Weah’s ardent critics, who, during previous elections, called him all sorts of names and branded him incompetent and politically inexperienced for the Country’s highest seat, the presidency.
Even some of them did not see any reason for their respective parties to have joined a coalition that was to be headed by the former President and his CDC, apparently because of their individual ambitions for the presidency at that time or because he was inexperienced and incompetent as they claimed.
However, their separate statements and remarks during the events in Zwedru, would suggest to any Liberian that the same politicians, who had said the former president was politically inexperienced and incompetent have likely withdrawn their initial disparaging comments about the former president and put aside their individual quest for the presidency to form a coalition with Weah and his Party, the CDC.
“I am not a politician, but that these people brought me here because they wanted something,” Weah once remarked in reference to politicians, who, because of his celebrity status, inspired him to contest the Liberian presidency that he eventually won in 2018.
Observers think the recent exodus of opposition political leaders to Zwedru to participate in the twenty anniversary events although on the invitation of CDC, was not in genuine solidarity with the Party, but because they think by queuing behind Weah, would easily give them the political opportunities they desperately want.
It all happened at a time it has been confirmed that former President Weah and his CDC are holding discussions with some fellow opposition politicians, including ANC’s Alexander Cummings, MPC’s Simeon Freemen and NPP’s Jewel Howard-Taylor, his former Vice President, to determine who is best suited to become his running mate during the much anticipated 2029 presidential and general elections.
Interestingly, while the CDC is observing its twenty second anniversary, the Party’s standard bearer, Mr. Weah, a soccer icon, who the opposition leaders are pursuing to use as a ladder to climb to state power, is in the United States watching this year’s World Cup in which his son is playing for the United States of America, further raising doubts about whether or not he may seek the presidency in the 2029 elections.
Currently, the Liberian football icon serves as the Honorary Captain of FIFA’s Players’ Voice, PVP, appointed to lead a 16-member task force of former football legends. He advises FIFA on its Global Stand against Racism Initiative. The development has further exacerbated the belief of some Liberians, some of them his own partisans and supporters, that it is unlikely the former president will quit the prestigious and lucrative responsibility the FIFA has given him to return to politics.
