CPDM expulsion: copying SDF's bad example

CPDM national chairman, Paul Biya on Tuesday signed a controversial order imposing disciplinary measures which range from dismissal to warnings on some 100 members of the ruling party.

The verdict follows recommendations made by a 17- man commission headed by Peter Mafany Musonge, senate chief whip and former prime minister.

The commission’s members included four vice presidents- Talba Malla Ibrahim, national orgainizing secretary and current general manager of SONARA; Tsimi Evouna Gilbert, party treasurer and government delegate to the Yaounde city council; Yaou Aissatou, national WCPDM president and Senator Francis Nkwain, a member of the central committee secretariat.

Members of the commission also include government ministers like Fame Ndongo Jacques,Tchuinte Madeline, Fogui Jean Pierrre, Moukoko Mbonjo Pierre and Senator Ndanga Ndinga Badel with Baba Amadou, Monkam Nitcheu Jean-Fabien, Oyono Dieudonné, Ndong Soumhet Benoit, Ndembiyembe Paul Celestin, Mien Zok Christophe and Me Noah Guy as rapporteurs.

The commission, created last December followed wild spread discontent among party militants just before the last legislative and municipal elections of September 30, 2013.

Many of those sanctioned were vocal against the investiture of candidates for the parliamentary elections by the central committee instead of grassroots primaries which are more democratic.

So debilitating and contentious were the elections to the extent that the central committee was branded as a “market” where those wanting to be invested to run for parliamentary seats could “buy” their nominations.

Most of those brought before the Musonge commission are militants who spoke openly against the central committee’s undemocratic procedure while the vast majority swallowed the party’s controversial decision in silence.

When party scribe, Jean Kuete installed the commission on 12 December, he challenged members to be “objective and fair”. In response, Musonge said “we’ve drawn up our programme of activity and we are going to start working. It is a solid task, but we have solid people in the commission and we will be able to do our job without fear or favour.”

The Guardian Post has no rationale to doubt the quality of the members of the commission or its composition. Our disparity is guided by the legality behind the decision. The commission has in publishing its verdict failed to mention the details of the “offences” committed by the “culprits” so as to make the public and other militants have their own judgment.

It is however not the first time the CPDM is setting up such a commission whose verdicts have been regarded by articulate observers and moderates of the party as dictatorial and undemocratic.

A decade ago, former transport minister, the late Christopher Nsahlai, was appointed chairman of a commission to present recommendations before an extra-ordinary CPDM congress to elect its 2004 presidential candidate.

The commission was provoked by Chief Milla Assoute’s “group of modernists of the CPDM party” that wanted party decisions to be more democratic against the whims of ultra conservatives.

Assoute’s group had petitioned the central committee about the dictatorial tendencies at the helm of the party which it said had an adverse effect on the policies of the CPDM and nation.

The “modernists,” as they were called, recommended that reforms should be urgently made in order to stop the perverse and adverse effects in conformity with the original noble values of the party as defined by Chairman Paul Biya.

Assoute in correspondences to section presidents condemned the practice where elected representatives were marginalised by appointed resource persons from Yaounde whenever there was a major party issue. The objectives of the reforms, he said,was to instill discipline, accountability and curbed corruption within the governing party.

President Biya bought the recommendation of giving section presidents the powers over resource persons but much of the modernists’ ideas were given a cold-shoulder. Assoute and his group left the party in disappointment.

If his recommendations were accepted, they might have been no need for Musonge’s commission which has actually punished outspoken progressives in the face of undemocratic decisions which could cripple party’s legitimacy and effectiveness.

The birth of the CPDM nearly three decades ago from the arches of the single CNU party was seen as a democratic reflection and transformation of the Cameroon polity from an authoritarian system.

It was a liberal democratic structuring of society which Paul Biya elaborated in his book, Communal Liberalism and a policy of rigour and moralization. Liberalism was followed by the Liberty Laws of 1990 authorising creation of political parties which culminated into the establishment of some 300 parties today.

All of the parties can rightly be said to be the off-springs of the CPDM; created because their “leaders” failed to find their level in the ruling party or are in disagreement with the ruling conservatives resisting any innovative change.

The party’s constitution stipulates that the: “Congress shall define the general programme and political, economic, social and cultural orientation of the party”.

This time frame takes into consideration the vagaries to keep abreast with the evolution of the socio-economic and political developments and the evolving complexities of governance.

The youths and progressive militants grumble silently that the powers given to the national chairman are too vast and that there should be a clear separation between the presidency and the party secretariat.

Other important issues militants have complained silently include the revision of the local organs such as the cells, sub-sections and sections where the five-year mandate of executive members long expired.

Most of these grievances being stomached by militants and officials at the lower ranks of the party cannot be expressed because of the fear of being sanctioned. Musonge’s commission has however done its work, as defective as it.

Defective because most of those who have been punished are victims of publicly rejecting the dictates of the central committee to impose unpopular candidates on them for the last legislative and council elections.

The Guardian Post supports the imperative to punish undisciplined and recalcitrant militants of a political party, but they must be given a free and fair hearing with options for appeal.

Their offence, especially in a ruling party whose decision reflects the direction and thoughts of the government, should be inscribed in the statute of the party, not at the quirk of political conservatives frightened by democratically dissenting voices opposing dictatorship.

To be very fair to the CPDM, one can only but conjure that the decision to expel outspoken militants has been unfortunately borrowed from Ni John Fru Ndi’s Article 8.2 which expels militants who dare raise a finger against undemocratic practices within the party.