The Most Rigged Election in History | 1,680% Voter Turnout Rate

Опубликовано: 31 Октябрь 2024
на канале: 87 Seconds

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Historians agree that this is the most rigged election of all time.

It’s even earned a spot in the Guinness World record for being the most fraudulent election in history.
But before I talk about the 1927 Liberian General Election with a 1,700% voter turn-out, it’s important to dive into the history of the country.

Liberia has a bit of a unique history. It was never colonized by any of the European powers.
It was instead, founded by a group of 88 formers slaves known as the American Colonization Society. Or ACS for short.

They were Americo-Liberians…. seen to be more “civilized” than the rest of Africa.

A massive part of that perception stemmed from the fact that unlike other African societies, Liberia held elections to determine their leaders.

But as you've probably guessed, these elections weren't entirely fair. Enter the Liberian True Wig Party.

Named after the former Whig Party in the United States, the Liberian spin off seized complete control of the country’s entire political apparatus. An aspiring politician could try to forge his own path.
But going up against the True Whig Party was an enormous task and if he failed, he would be completely shut out of politics for the rest of his life.

Career suicide if you will.

This remained as the accepted status quo for more than 50 years until Thomas J Faulkner of the People’s Party challenged the True Wig Party’s candidate Charles D. B. King for the presidency in 1927.

Obviously, the True Wig Party wasn’t particularly enthused about this. If Faulkner won the election, the People’s Party would have completely dismantled the political infrastructure the True Wig Party had spent half of a century building.

So D. B. King did what all fearful power hungry autocrat does: he rigged the election. Liberia had 15,000 registered voters in 1927.

Yet the results for the election showed a 9,000 counted votes for Faulkner against a staggering 243,000 for King. That makes for a 1,680% voter turnout rate. If the Presidential election was done democratically, Faulkner would have won with a 60% blowout.
But alas, the election wasn’t democratic.

The True Wig Party would remain in power until 1980 when their leader was killed in a violent coup.

Following the coup was a 20 year long dictatorship until 2003. With the help of the United Nations, Liberia had its first ever truly democratic general election in 2005.

The country has been doing better, but after being entrenched in a whole century of one party rule, there is a long way to go before all of the corruption is successfully purged from the Liberian politics.

Remember to hashtag #Vote this #ElectionDay for the sake of #Democracy