Dr. Joseph D.Z Korto, a former Presidential candidate in 2005 elections and went on to become the first Minister of Education in former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s government has died, family sources have hinted Liberia Public Radio.
Family sources confirmed told LPR US correspondent Tuesday that Dr. Korto died on Sunday, June 21, 2020 in a Delaware Hospital following a period of illness.
Dr. Korto was a member of the Liberia Equal Rights Party(LERP).
Prior to the 2005 elections, Dr. Joseph Korto bolted the Liberian Action Party, citing in an open letter, “the unwillingness of the party’s (LAP) leadership to reason with me.”
Dr. Korto wrote: “My decision to withdraw from the race for Standard Bearer of the Liberia Action Party (LAP) certainly took most, if not all of you by surprise. I extend to you my heartfelt apology for the sense of disappointment this unfortunate but necessary withdrawal may have caused you. Please understand that the situation demanded a response in the manner in which I came through.”
He was born in Barpa, Nimba County and was Minister of Education in Liberia from 2006-2010. Dr. Korto was also the Executive Director of the Liberian Development Foundation, an organization founded in 1982, by the Catholic Society of African Mission to promote socio-economic and human development in Liberia.
The foundation had been dormant until Dr. Korto took over in 2001 and helped raise the organization’s profile.
He returned to Liberia in 2005, to make a run for the presidency in the first democratic elections of post-war Liberia.
In the 2005 presidential elections, he rand on the LERP, placing seventh out of 22 candidates, receiving 3.3% of the vote nationally and the highest vote total in Nimba County, his home base.
Meanwhile Dr. Korto kinsmen back home in Nimba have described the death of the educator as a great loss to the county and Liberia at large.
