Monrovia, Liberia – The Citizens Movement for Change (CMC) has declined an invitation to an opposition leaders’ roundtable organized by the Congress for Democratic Change, arguing that Liberia’s opposition cannot achieve genuine unity if leadership and coordinating structures are decided before the parties sit down to negotiate.
In a letter dated August 28, CMC Political Leader Hon. Musa Hassan Bilily acknowledged the invitation from CDC National Chairman Atty. Janga A. Kowo to participate in a September 5 opposition leaders’ meeting but said his party could not accept the proposal in its current form.
Bilily said the CMC supports greater cooperation among opposition political parties and remains willing to work with political organizations seeking to develop a credible alternative for Liberians.
But he drew a sharp line between supporting opposition unity and accepting a structure that, in his view, has already assigned authority before negotiations begin.
According to Bilily, the proposed roundtable does more than bring opposition leaders together for an initial consultation. He said it identifies a presiding leader, establishes a National Convening Secretariat and places the secretariat under an already appointed lead and coordinator.
The CMC leader argued that such arrangements create the impression that a collective opposition organization has already been formed and that its leadership has already been determined.
That, he said, is unacceptable to the CMC.
Bilily maintained that former President George Manneh Weah, as political leader of the CDC, has every right to invite other opposition parties to exploratory discussions. However, he argued that hosting the first meeting should not automatically give any individual or party authority to lead or coordinate the wider opposition.
“The host of a meeting may facilitate that meeting,” Bilily said in the letter, while insisting that leadership of any united opposition should emerge from a process agreed upon by all participating parties.
The CMC’s position introduces a potentially significant obstacle to efforts to establish a coordinated opposition bloc.
Rather than entering an existing structure, Bilily wants the opposition parties to begin with a clean slate and negotiate the architecture of their cooperation.
He proposed that the initial meeting should involve major opposition parties as equal and independent institutions, without predetermined leadership, authority or organizational arrangements.
The parties, he said, should first examine Liberia’s political, economic, governance, security and democratic conditions and agree on the problems they believe have brought the country to its current position.
They should then develop common principles and national priorities before preparing what Bilily described as a clear contract with the Liberian people.
That document would spell out what a united opposition would protect, what it would seek to change and what it would promise to deliver if it eventually assumed national leadership.
Bilily also called for the opposition to agree on decision-making procedures, mechanisms for resolving internal disputes and the responsibilities of each participating political institution.
Only after those issues are settled, he argued, should the opposition determine how its collective leadership and coordinating structures will be selected.
The CMC proposed a four-level process involving political leaders, national chairpersons, secretaries general and a technical team representing the participating parties equally.
Under the proposal, political leaders would establish the broad vision and principles, while chairpersons would coordinate the institutional process and secretaries general would work out operational arrangements.
An equal-party technical team would then draft a framework for discussion, amendment and final adoption.
Bilily said collective leadership, a secretariat and coordinating authority should only be created after that framework receives the parties’ approval.
The CMC’s refusal is therefore being framed not as a rejection of opposition unity but as a challenge to how that unity should be constructed.
Bilily said his party would be among the first to participate if the September meeting is redesigned as a preliminary consultation among equals.
