Liberia, April 13 -- FOR YEARS, Rep. Yekeh Kolubah occupied a controversial but constitutionally protected space within Liberia's political arena. His criticisms of former President George Weah were often sharp, unfiltered, and, at times, deeply offensive to his opponents.

YET, the Weah administration, despite possessing both the authority and opportunity, refrained from deploying the machinery of government to silence him. That restraint, whether strategic or principled, preserved a critical democratic norm, the tolerance of dissent, even in its most uncomfortable forms.

TODAY, under President Joseph Nyuma Boakai and the ruling Unity Party, the environment appears markedly different. The same political actor who once fou...