Ahead of November's midterm elections, VPR is featuring interviews with candidates running for statewide office. Murray Ngoima is a Liberty Union candidate for Lieutenant Governor. She’s challenging incumbent Progressive/Democrat David Zuckerman.
Ngoima said candidates with the Liberty Union party don’t “run” for office.
“We’re perhaps standing for office, or offering ourselves as candidates for an office, which is different than running,” she said. “We, generally speaking, avoid the use of the military technology in the electoral process.”
Ngoima, who has “stood for” Vermont State Treasurer several times in the past, said her lieutenant governor candidacy allows her to talk about a broader range of issues. One such issue is single-payer healthcare, which she says can be funded with money currently allocated to the military budget.
“The money put into the military does not make us, as a society or as a state, any safer,” said Ngoima. “In fact, it further endangers our lives. That money is being syphoned out of the local economies, and state economies and the national economy. That money could be used otherwise.”
Ngoima, who has been active in the Liberty Union party since 1970, says a vote for her party is a vote for values not represented by the two major parties.
“I’m not tied to a platform that supports the military, which the Democratic platform does.”
Ngoima also spoke with VPR about a tax-and-regulate model for marijuana, clean water, and gun control legislation.
Listen to the interview with Ngoima above. Find VPR's Campaign 2018 coverage here.
