October’s general and Presidential elections are weeks away, and one of the contending parties, the Coalition of Political Parties Political leader; Alexander Cummings, made a radio appearance on Truth FM where he made these claims.
Did he get the facts right?
1. Claim: I came 5th in 2017
Verification: True. Cummings contested the 2017 elections on the Alternative National Congress (ANC) ticket, where the party came 5th of 21 political parties that contested.
2. Claim: We came 3rd in 6th counties
Verification: Misleading. The ANC came in third in five of Liberia’s 15 counties. The 2017 elections saw 21 Presidential candidates, which Cummings contested, and the ANC finished third in five counties, not six as claimed by Cummings.
3. Claim: Half of the electorates in 2023 are women
Verification: True. According to the National Elections Commission (NEC) 2023 BVR Report, before the deduplication and adjudication processes, the total number of registered voters synchronized from across the country was slightly more than 2.4 million (2, 498, 904). 49.67 per cent of this total are females, while 50.32 percent are males.
However, the NEC Report reveals that there was 27,192 registrant duplication, with 529 registrants flagged as suspected underage across the 15 counties.
According to the NEC, the total number of registered voters will be 2,471,183 after the adjudication process. Females account for 50.06%, while males account for 49.94%.
NEC 2023 BVR Report following data according to synchronization, deduplication, and adjudication, women account for 50.06% of registered voters or half of all registered voters.
4. Claim: Between Ivory Coast to Ghana control 60 per cent of the world’s Cocoa
Verification: True. The World Population Review, Statista and the World Atlas put Ivory Coast as the biggest cocoa producer globally, producing about 2,200,000 tons of cocoa beans annually.
5. Liberia is among the top 5 locations in the world.
Verification: Misleading. CNN, Travel Media Daily and 57 Hours did not name Liberia among the top five locations for surfing.
This story was produced with the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development’s (CJID) support.
