Liberia launches UN voter education drive, opens voter registration centres

With the Liberian elections scheduled for October, voter registration has started at more than 1,500 centres across the West African country, the United Nations peacekeeping mission said.

"This is a very important time in Liberia's history. The registration process will blaze the trail for the restoration of democracy and good governance in the country," the Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Liberia, Jacques Paul Klein, said yesterday as registration began.

Mr. Klein also heads the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), which said voter registration would end on 21 May, after which an estimated 1.5 million Liberians were expected to vote in a President, a Vice-President and members of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Any prospective voter who lost a birth certificate or passport during the 14-year civil war could bring a traditional leader or two ordinary citizens to confirm his or her identity, according to a new electoral law signed by Chairman Gyude Bryant of the National Transitional Government.

UNMIL said it was providing sustainable technical assistance to the National Elections Commission (NEC) and coordinating other international assistance.

"At this point, ours is a fragile nation that over the years tragically lost the use of its legs and is now learning how to walk all over again," NEC Chairperson Frances Johnson-Morris said recently.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) said it had contributed $536,000 to the electoral process, and was managing $3.8 million in European Commission contributions, including $500,000 for computerizing the voter rolls.

In this regard, UNDP has joined forces with the National Democratic Institute and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems to train more than 50 community-based voter educators from 25 civil society organizations (CSOs) on the Elections Reform Law and the Voter Registration Regulations and Procedures.

The CSOs would also teach voters how to analyze political appeals, UNDP said.

"We very much count on you to deliver the very much needed civic empowerment for all the people of Liberia so that they can make informed choices during the upcoming election," UNDP's Steve Ursino told CSOs during a recent grant-signing ceremony.