Liberia: NPP Chairman Moves to Install ‘Political Leader’ at December Convention as Embattled Standard Bearer Jewel Howard-Taylor Fights Drug Charges

MONROVIA – The leadership of the National Patriotic Party (NPP) has unveiled a plan that critics say would quietly strip former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor of control of the party at the very moment she faces the gravest challenge of her political life: a drug trafficking and money laundering prosecution.

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By Rodney D Sieh

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In a message circulated to partisans, NPP National Chairman Atty. George Sylvester Mulbah Sr. said there would be no Standard Bearer election at the party’s December convention. Instead, delegates will elect a “political leader” who will have no right to contest the presidency.

Mulbah said the decision rests on what he called the 2016 Bomi amendment to the party’s constitution. He said the political leader post would cease to exist once the party elects a Standard Bearer for the 2029 elections.

The chairman also declared that “every official has lost tenure” and that partisans would elect new officers at the December convention — a statement critics read as including Howard-Taylor, who has held the Standard Bearer post.

Delegates capped at three per district

Mulbah’s message came in response to complaints from partisans about the size of the delegation to the convention. He said the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) voted at its last meeting to send three delegates from each district, and that the minutes of that meeting are clear on the matter.

With Liberia’s 73 electoral districts, that would put the number of voting delegates at roughly 219.

The chairman said he would address NPP partisans in the United States virtually on Sunday, November 1, and wished partisans “a peaceful convention in December.”

‘No such position’

Critics within the party have rejected the plan outright. A senior partisan opposed to the move told FrontPageAfrica there is no political leader position in the NPP’s constitution or by-laws.

The partisan said the Bomi amendment Mulbah is relying on was never printed or circulated to members, and accused former Secretary General Andrew Peters of keeping it secret.

Peters is a longtime figure in the party’s factional battles. He was aligned with former Chairman James Biney in the protracted fight against Howard-Taylor for control of the NPP, a dispute that split the party, ended up before the National Elections Commission and reached the Supreme Court.

Earlier warnings of a Koung takeover

The chairman’s announcement deepens a crisis FrontPageAfrica first reported on October 21, when party insiders alleged that the fight over the December convention was about more than the calendar.

“I think a few at the top want to use this impasse to sell the NPP to Vice President Jeremiah Koung,” a senior party source said at the time, speaking on condition of anonymity. Koung’s office did not respond to FrontPageAfrica’s request for comment then.

A group calling itself the Concerned Partisans of the National Patriotic Party (CP-NPP), led by Emmanuel Goll, had already called for the convention to be postponed. The group said holding it now showed a lack of sensitivity to Howard-Taylor’s arrest and indictment, and could feed public perceptions that the case against her is politically motivated.

The CP-NPP argued that under Article V, Section 5.22(VII) of the party’s 2004 Constitution, the Standard Bearer remains in office until the next National Convention, which it says is not due until 2029. It noted that a December date fits the party’s Biennial Convention, not a National Convention, and questioned why the leadership reportedly presented the gathering to the National Elections Commission as a National Convention.

The group also questioned why the December meeting appeared designed to replace the sitting Standard Bearer with a political leader — exactly what Mulbah has now announced.

The CP-NPP further accused Senator Biney, who chairs the Senate Committee on Executive, of influencing a faction of the executive committee to push for the convention in pursuit of his own ambition to become political leader. Biney did not respond to FrontPageAfrica’s inquiry for that story.

The group conceded that many party officials have served beyond their terms because of the long internal crisis, but argued that if they can remain in office until a proper convention elects successors, the Standard Bearer should be allowed the same.

The drug case

Howard-Taylor, who served as Vice President from 2018 to 2024 under former President George Weah, was arrested at Roberts International Airport on August 19, 2026.

Prosecutors have charged her with drug trafficking, money laundering, criminal conspiracy, criminal facilitation, criminal solicitation, and the unlicensed importation, sale, distribution and transportation of controlled substances.

The case followed the July 21 seizure of nearly four metric tons of cocaine valued at about US$317 million in Duazon, the largest drug bust in Liberia’s history. The government’s case covers the period from 2021 to August 2026 and centers on her alleged meetings and financial dealings with people investigators describe as members of a transnational trafficking organization, including an alleged US$15,000 payment in August 2026. Prosecutors do not allege she physically handled cocaine.

She was initially committed to the Monrovia Central Prison after the Monrovia City Court refused her lawyers’ request that she remain in hospital. Criminal Court “C” later granted her compassionate release to receive medical care at her residence under strict restrictions. A Montserrado County grand jury indicted her and others on October 7.

Howard-Taylor denies the allegations. Her family and legal team have proclaimed her innocence and said the defense will move directly to trial. She is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

A familiar fight

The latest maneuvering revives one of the longest-running feuds in Liberian party politics. Howard-Taylor and Biney fought for years over who controls the party founded by her ex-husband, former President Charles Taylor, with expulsions, counter-expulsions and rival conventions.

Mulbah himself has openly clashed with Howard-Taylor. In April 2025, he branded her “rebellious” after she endorsed the CDC-backed candidate in the Nimba County senatorial by-election, and said the party would focus on rebranding and electing new leadership ahead of 2029.

For Howard-Taylor’s supporters, the timing of the December convention — and a leadership post they say does not exist in the party’s founding documents — looks less like reform and more like an effort to settle old scores while she is unable to fight back.