Liberia: Partisans Allege Push to Hand Party to Koung as Howard-Taylor Faces Drug Charges

MONROVIA – The National Patriotic Party (NPP) may be heading into another leadership crisis. Former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor is facing drug charges, and a group of partisans is now openly fighting the party leadership over plans to hold a convention in December. Some party insiders say the dispute is about more than the calendar.

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By Gerald C. Koinyeneh

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“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 told FrontPageAfrica. The source asked not to be named because of how sensitive the internal talks are.

Vice President Koung’s office had not responded to FrontPageAfrica’s request for comment by press time.

Call for postponement

A group calling itself the Concerned Partisans of the National Patriotic Party (CP-NPP) wants the party to postpone the convention planned for December 2026. The group says it is made up of members of the party’s National Executive Committee and longtime stalwarts. In a press release signed by its chairman, Emmanuel Goll, the group said the timing “demonstrates a lack of sensitivity” to the arrest, detention and indictment of Howard-Taylor, the party’s Standard Bearer.

The group warned that going ahead with the convention now “could reinforce growing public perceptions that the arrest and indictment of its Standard Bearer are politically motivated.”

Howard-Taylor was Vice President from 2018 to 2024. She was arrested at Roberts International Airport on August 19, 2026. A Montserrado County grand jury indicted her and others on October 7 over an alleged US$317 million cocaine trafficking operation. The case is linked to the seizure of about four metric tons of cocaine in Duazon in July. The charges include drug trafficking, criminal conspiracy, and money laundering. Reports say she was later placed under house arrest on medical grounds while the case continues. She is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Biney in the crosshairs

The CP-NPP’s sharpest criticism is aimed at Senator James Biney, who chairs the Senate Committee on Executive. The group pointed to what it called his “proximity to the ruling establishment” and accused him of allegedly influencing a faction of the party’s executive committee to push for “a contentious convention.”

The group said thisraises concerns that Biney is trying “to advance his ambition to become Political Leader” in a way that, in its view, goes against Articles III and V of the party’s 2004 Constitution.

Biney and Howard-Taylor have fought before over who controls the NPP. Their earlier struggles split the party and ended up before the National Elections Commission.

Senator Biney did not respond to FPA’s inquiry up to press time.

‘Unexpected’ timetable

According to the CP-NPP, consultations about moving the convention to a later date were still going on among executive committee members, the Advisory Council and party stalwarts when the Party Secretariat “unexpectedly released a timetable of convention activities.” The group said it issued its release as “a caution against actions that could deepen existing divisions and generate further crises.”

Constitutional questions

The group’s legal argument is built on the party constitution, which provides for two kinds of convention:

• Biennial Convention (Section 3.2(b)): held every other year on the second Saturday of December

• National Convention (Section 3.2(a)): held every six years or in a national election year

Article V, Section 5.22(VII) says the Standard Bearer stays in office until the next National Convention. By the CP-NPP’s reading, that is not due until 2029.

Because the leadership has fixed the date on the second Saturday of December, the group says the gathering is a Biennial Convention. It asked: “If the proposed gathering is a Biennial Convention, why did the Party’s leadership reportedly present it to the National Elections Commission as a National Convention?”

It also questioned why the December meeting “appear[s] to be aimed at replacing the sitting Standard Bearer with a Political Leader through a process that CP-NPP considers unconstitutional.”

“An indictment does not constitute a conviction or establish guilt,” the group said. “The Party must not disregard constitutional safeguards or treat allegations against its Standard Bearer as proof of wrongdoing.”

The CP-NPP wants the leadership to revisit the group’s July 20, 2026 letter to the National Elections Commission and the Commission’s reply dated September 17, 2026.

The group admitted that the party’s long internal crisis has left many officials serving after their terms expired. It argued that if those officials can stay in office until a proper convention elects their successors, the Standard Bearer should be allowed to do the same.

“The Constitution must remain the supreme authority in the affairs of the Party,” the release concluded, “and no individual ambition should take precedence over its provisions.”

The NPP Secretariat had not responded to questions about the convention timetable by press time.