German Political Foundation FES aids SDF to look within

Participants at FES-SDF Seminar in Bamenda 

From Bakah Derick in Bamenda

The German non-profit political foundation Friedrich Ebert Stiftung FES has provided a platform for Cameroon’s lead opposition party the Social Democratic Front SDF to look within and advance in her tenets of social democracy. This was during a two day seminar organized in Bamenda from the 14-15 of September 2017 for SDF Parliamentarians and other senior officials of the party.   

With focus on social democracy and political crisis, experts drawn from with and without the party handled from diverse angles issues relating to the role of the SDF in the ongoing crisis in the English Speaking regions of Cameroon.

Speaking at the opening of the workshop the Resident Representative of the Foundation in Cameroon maintained that the SDF as an opposition can in one way or another contribute positively to the development of Cameroon. According to Friedrich Kramme-Stermose, this cannot happen successfully if the party is not sufficiently empowered to do so with respect to social democratic principles.

In what looked like a clinical examination of the SDF in the last 27years a renowned professor and Shadow cabinet minister of the SDF whose name we only got as Prof Ajaga Nji told the seminar participants that the SDF has surely remained where it is since creation because of failure to propose something new to Cameroonians. According to the learned Professor the SDF must rise up and take the challenge of leading in searching for a lasting solution to the Anglophone or forever regret the consequences of their actions.

Examining the challenges of parliamentary opposition in Cameroon Hon Joseph Banadzem Lukong SDF parliamentary group leader noted that since the inception of the SDF their progress has been marred by “electoral fraud and extreme bad electoral system.”  According to the MP from Kumbo, his party has been exploiting the various strategies and techniques required of parliamentary opposition reason why they work on bills with diverse reactions like boycotts and workouts or voting for or against them. “FES has in this seminar helped us to move from empiric to concretize a document how we have so far functioned. In future such experiences should be carried on even before candidates get into parliament.” Hon Banadzem conclusively recommended.

Contextualizing the Anglophone crisis, the MP for Bamenda-Bali Hon Fobi Nchinda Simon placed the current situation on the November 26, 1959 “Accord de Corporation” which completely handed Cameroon’s political, economic, socio-cultural policies, currency, school curriculum and even exploitation of Cameroon’s raw material to France. According to the versatile MP, the situation has not changed till date thus raising the worries as to who will Anglophone Cameroon go into dialogue with if there was one La Republic du Cameroon or France.

By virtue of this seminar, the FES has respected at least one of her core values of Political educational work which allows for the strengthening of the civil society to successfully engage in in social discussions and decision-making processes.