By NOELA EBOB BISONG
Militants of the Social Democratic Front, SDF party in the Littoral region, headed by Hon. Jean Michel Nintcheu, are fuming over the trampling of the party’s prerogatives and the law in the process of replacing its deceased deputy Mayor of the Douala I council.
Lotin Same the fourth deputy mayor who died a few months back was replaced by Edimo Same who does not carry the support and endorsement of the party, in very controversial circumstances.
According to them, Edimo Same, militant of the party was not invested by the National Chairman of the SDF, Ni John Fru Ndi as well as the NEC.
Jean Michel Nintcheu, Regional President of the Social Democratic Front SDF, party for the Littoral states that the provisions of article 60 paragraph 1 of the 2004 law laying down the rules applicable to councils have been violated, following the replacement of the said deputy mayor.
According to Nintcheu, “this article clearly states that the mayor is elected by a single-member ballot and deputies to the mayor are elected through a list system. It is clear from the law that the list of deputy mayors is elected and not a deputy mayor”.
He argues that for there to be an extraordinary election for the replacement of a deputy mayor, “it would be absolutely necessary to put the list of deputies on the table and proceed with the election of the whole of this list”, which he maintains has not been the case.
SDF militants are also angered over the fact that Mayor Lengue Malapa, mayor of the Douala I council, has violated the law: “With the active complicity of municipal councillors mainly from his party the CPDM, he chose one of his ‘comrades’ to replace the late deputy mayor of the SDF”.
Nintcheu also says that “the complicit silence of the Senior Divisional Officer, SDO of the Wouri division, supervisory authority over the councils, once again proves that the objective of this totally illegal maneuver is to weaken at all costs the opposition political parties in the Wouri division”.
According to the SDF Littoral Regional President, “what happened in Douala I is too much of a provocation. Those who have been involved in the rape of the texts to the point of violating the provisions of the law as well as the directives of the National President of the SDF will take full responsibility for everything that follows…we cannot accept that the CPDM with the complicity of the administrative authorities decides who will replace a deputy SDF deceased mayor, this is unacceptable and the administrative supervisory authority will have to assume the consequences that will ensue if this masquerade is validated”, he warns.
It should be recalled that during the session as of right in October 2013, the list of deputies consisted of three deputies of the CPDM and a deputy of the SDF; the fourth deputy of the SDF invested by the national president John Fru Ndi, was then presented to the Douala City Council for voting.
According to Robert Wafo, deputy Mayor of Douala II and also SDF shadow cabinet minister in charge of information and media, “The logic of parralelism of form should be respected that the candidate invested by the national president of the SDF should simply be invested in the post without election. Failing that, it would have been necessary in case of election that a list of four deputies be submitted to the vote of the Council again in order to respect scrupulously the provisions of Article 60 (3) which provides that the election of deputies is made by ballot. The latter case would have been staggering insofar as the other three deputies were neither dead nor at the end of their term of office; therefore, to be faithful to the spirit and the letter of the 2004 law laying down the rules applicable to councils, the only logical option that remained was the designation by the party to respect the sacrosanct principle of parallelism of form. Alas! the right has been violated for reasons obviously unacknowledged”.