The Political Leader of the Citizens Movement for Change (CMC), Musa Hassan Bility, is challenging what he portrays as the Coalition for Democratic Change's (CDC) claim to leadership and ownership of the country's opposition politics, arguing that opposition cooperation cannot be reduced to allegiance to one political organization.

In an open letter addressed to friends and supporters within the CDC, Bility draws a line between opposing the Unity Party government and automatically aligning with the CDC, while making a broader argument about how political alliances should be structured as Liberia moves toward the 2029 elections.

"Being in opposition does not mean supporting the CDC," Bility declared.

His argument is significant because it comes at a time when opposition parties are again discussing cooperation, but with unresolved questions about who should lead, how decisions should be made and whether a future alliance will be built around a common governing program or simply the objective of defeating the incumbent Unity Party.

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Recent developments suggest those questions are already producing friction. In September, opposition leaders including the CDC, ANC, CMC and other political actors agreed to develop a framework for cooperation, while stopping short of announcing a coalition or presidential ticket.

Bility's latest intervention therefore goes beyond a disagreement with the CDC. It challenges the architecture of opposition politics itself.

Bility's central argument: opposition is bigger than the CDC

Bility acknowledges that he previously supported the CDC in presidential runoffs where the choice was between the CDC and Joseph Nyuma Boakai, while maintaining that such support did not establish permanent political allegiance.

"There are many Liberians who believe that neither the Unity Party nor the CDC presently represents the transformation our country requires," he said. "That aspiration is not a crime. It is not a betrayal. It does not make me an ally of the Unity Party."

The argument effectively challenges the idea that political choices must remain a two-bloc contest between the ruling Unity Party and the CDC.

For Bility, the CMC's political space depends on that distinction.

The sharper part of Bility's argument concerns what he sees as the CDC's controlling approach to political collaboration.

This is not an entirely new concern in his political history.

In June 2026, while speaking at the CDC's 22nd anniversary celebration in Zwedru, Bility acknowledged the CDC as the dominant force within the opposition but challenged it to build future cooperation around principles rather than power. He told the gathering, "Today, you are the doyen of the opposition. The honor is on you. We are prepared to work together." He nevertheless called for cooperation based on "guiding principles" and a new national roadmap.

The significance of that position is that Bility did not reject opposition unity in principle.

His dispute is over the terms of unity.

That distinction became clearer when CMC subsequently objected to an opposition roundtable convened by the CDC, arguing that the proposed structure had already been determined before all opposition parties had participated in negotiations.

The CMC later withdrew from the emerging opposition coalition process, saying the proposed framework did not satisfy its demand for equal participation and a binding reform agenda.

Bility's criticism therefore appears to be part of a continuing position--the CDC can be a major participant in opposition cooperation, but should not automatically become the owner or manager of the opposition project.

A dominant party can provide organizational capacity, financial resources, national structures and a large voter base. But if smaller parties believe their participation is predetermined or subordinate, cooperation can become difficult to sustain.

The country's recent political history provides evidence of how fragile such arrangements can become.

The collapse of the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) before the 2023 elections remains one of the clearest examples.

The CPP brought together the Unity Party, Alternative National Congress, Liberty Party and All Liberian Party. It was initially presented as a major opposition coalition capable of challenging the CDC government. But disagreements over leadership and political direction eventually fractured the alliance.

Bility was himself deeply involved in that history as Liberty Party chairman and CPP National Chairman.

There is consequently an important irony in his current argument.

The same politician who participated in one of Liberia's largest opposition coalition experiments is now warning that numerical unity without institutional rules, shared principles and equality among partners can produce another unstable alliance.

His criticism of CDC dominance can therefore be read as part of a larger argument about Liberia's coalition culture: political parties repeatedly unite around the goal of winning power, but struggle to establish mechanisms for sharing authority, resolving disagreements and defining what happens after victory.

That is the deeper issue Bility appears to be raising.

Bility's strongest evidence for his argument is the controversy surrounding former House Speaker J. Fonati Koffa.

He argues that the 2023 elections produced a legislature in which the executive and legislative branches were not controlled by the same political force. In his interpretation, that balance offered the opposition an opportunity to exercise meaningful legislative oversight.

He then accuses senior CDC figures of helping the Unity Party-aligned bloc remove Koffa.

The historical record shows that the Koffa controversy was considerably more complicated than a simple CDC-versus-UP confrontation.

Koffa, a CDC lawmaker, faced an effort to remove him beginning in 2024. CDC leadership publicly warned party lawmakers against participating in the effort and suspended or disciplined several members who supported the anti-Koffa bloc.

On November 21, 2024, a bloc of lawmakers declared the speakership vacant and elected Richard Koon as Speaker. The bloc's resolution carried 50 signatures.

The episode subsequently became a constitutional dispute. In April 2025, the Supreme Court ruled that the Majority Bloc's attempt to remove Koffa was unconstitutional, according to International IDEA's summary of the decision.

That judicial finding is particularly relevant to Bility's argument because it transforms the Koffa controversy from merely an internal political dispute into a question about constitutionalism and institutional checks and balances.

However, Bility's characterization of specific CDC figures as having joined forces with the Unity Party should remain understood as his political allegation, rather than an established fact about the motives of every lawmaker involved.

The record itself shows competing explanations. CDC officials accused the Boakai administration of influencing its lawmakers, while the government rejected those accusations and described the struggle as an internal CDC power dispute.

Bility also argues that the CDC has not undertaken what he considers an adequate internal examination of its defeat in the 2023 presidential election.

"There has been no comprehensive evaluation of what went wrong, no honest discussion about what should have been done differently, and no willingness to acknowledge mistakes or apologize to the Liberian people where an apology may be warranted," he said.

The issue is particularly relevant because the CDC governed Liberia from 2018 to 2024 and is now positioning itself as the principal opposition force.

Bility's challenge is therefore not simply that the CDC lost power. It is that the party must demonstrate what it learned from governing.

He similarly points to the controversy surrounding former Supreme Court Associate Justice Kabineh Ja'neh.

The Ja'neh episode remains one of the more consequential institutional disputes of the Weah administration. Legislators initiated impeachment proceedings against Ja'neh and two other justices in 2017; in 2018, the House proceeded with a bill of impeachment against Ja'neh, while the Supreme Court intervened at stages of the proceedings.

Bility's reference to that episode appears intended to ask whether the CDC has sufficiently confronted controversial decisions made while it was in power.

The larger significance of Bility's intervention lies in what it says about the opposition landscape approaching 2029.

Bility's political position appears to be moving toward the creation of what could be described as a third political space--an alternative to both the governing Unity Party and the CDC.

That does not necessarily mean CMC will never cooperate with CDC or other opposition parties. Indeed, Bility has repeatedly said he is prepared to work with opposition actors.

His condition is that cooperation must not require political surrender.

"The CMC's fight is not simply against the Unity Party or the CDC," he said. "Our fight is against bad governance, corruption, abuse of power, institutional weakness, and the culture of impunity, regardless of who commits it."

That formulation is politically significant because it attempts to define CMC not simply by whom it opposes but by what it says it stands for.

Whether that position can translate into a durable political organization, a coherent national platform and broad electoral support is a question that only future political developments can answer.

Bility's intervention ultimately exposes a fundamental tension in Liberian opposition politics.

A large opposition coalition may be electorally useful, but political cooperation becomes difficult when one party believes its size gives it a permanent right to determine the agenda.

Conversely, smaller parties cannot demand equality without demonstrating that they bring an identifiable constituency, policy program and organizational capacity to the table.

The CDC's supporters can argue that its history, national structure and electoral strength naturally give it an important role in opposition coordination. Bility's response is that importance does not equal ownership.

His statement therefore presents a challenge not only to the CDC but to every opposition party entering the 2029 conversation.

Bility's closing message captures the democratic nature of that contest.

"We will meet on the democratic battlefront, the battlefield of ideas, leadership, character, and the sovereign votes of the Liberian people."

That may be the most consequential part of his argument.

The future of Liberia's opposition may not ultimately be determined by which party claims ownership of the opposition space, but by whether competing parties can demonstrate that political collaboration can exist without political subordination.