Almami Cylla, Interim NPD chairman
By Kemo Cham
Signs of division have appeared within the membership of the National Progressive Democrats (NPD), an aspiring political party in Sierra Leone, over the delay in their registration process.
NPD members, on the one hand, are in disagreement over who speaks on their behalf, and on the other hand, the group is having to deal with the issue of the protracted delay in its registration, for which it blames the Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC).
NPD, which has been in the making for over two years now, hopes to contest the forthcoming elections expected in 2018. But the party has been unable to get its final registration certificate from the PPRC which has cited a number of factors, notably lack of quorum, for the delay in taking a final decision.
Late last month the party issued a press statement, after its last meeting with the PPRC on June 7, urging the speedy issuance of the its final registration certificate. Its Director of Public Policy, Jesmed Suma, later criticized the political parties regulator for the delay.
Suma, who is a founding member of the NPD and is based in the United States, told Politico that PPRC’s delay of the approval process was detrimental to democracy.
The NPD's interim executive in Freetown took offense from Suma’s statement lambasting the Commission. It distanced itself from his. The party's interim chairman, Alimamy Cylla, said Suma wasn’t an executive member and that he couldn’t speak for the party.
Cylla, who is a member of the Registration Committee of the NPD, said only him or his nominee could speak for the party.
“Mr Jesmed Suma is not authorized to speak on behalf of the party or the Committee. As things stand, only the chairman or his nominee is mandated to speak on behalf of the provisionally registered party,” a statement signed by Cylla and the party’s Interim Secretary General, Mrs Susan Williams, which was sent to Politico, reads in part.
Like every existing political party in Sierra Leone, the NPD was first formed as a movement; it has been seeking full party status for at least one year now. It received its provisional registration certificate in January 18, 2016, after applying in October 2015. With this status its activities are limited politically, and it also has a ‘gag order’, imposed on it by the PPRC, which prevents it from hosting public rally or talking to the media. These were the issues raised by Mr Suma on a Politico story published on our June 29 edition.
“Whilst acknowledging that the said provisionally registered party has been having challenges/hiccups with regard to secure its final certificate of registration from the PPRC, the said article has certain inaccuracies that ought to be put straight,” the NPD officials in Freetown said in their statement. They disputed the fact that the party had been waiting for two years for final registration and denied that PPRC officials cut short their June 7 meeting on the excuse of lack of quorum.
Cylla and his colleagues also said Suma had no authority to use the pary’s symbol which appeared on the front page of the June 29 story.
“We are concerned that certain aspects of the opinion expressed by Mr Jesmed Suma are deviations from our party’s settled position contained in our press release dated 23 June, 2016,” the statement added.
But a defiant Suma has rejected the position of Cylla and his executive. He said in an email response to Politico that if he wasn’t qualified to speak for the party he helped formed, no one in the current executive was.
"If I, who initiated the idea for the formation of NPD, the new transformational Political party, as an alternative to APC and SLPP, the architect of its formation, I who co-authored the original NPD constitution, I who recruited Wachuku Williams and Almami Cyllah as well as recommended him (Almami) to be elected as our interim chairman, does not have what it takes to speak for NPD, then neither Almami nor Wachuku can speak on behalf of NPD," Suma said.
He insisted that it had taken two years from the formation of the NPD to get it registered, stressing that the PPRC had always cited excuses Mr Cylla himself had relayed to the party members, including lack of quorum.
Suma went on to accuse Cylla of misreading his statements on the issue of quorum.
“The fact remains that he claimed to have had several meetings with the PPRC chairman including some of which he considers to be private meetings. He is yet to tell us what those meetings were about and what was discussed. He continues to insist that they were private meeting between him and the PPRC chair. Yet he is supposed to be representing us,” Suma explained.
Meanwhile, the PPRC has expressed dismay at the conduct of the NPD officials, especially with regards their “impatience” with the process of awarding the final registration status.
PPRC chairman, Justice Thorla Thompson, told Politico that the only reason for the delay in taking a decision was the lack of quorum. He explained that the Commission comprised four members: himself, the head of the National Electoral Commission, and one representative each from the Bar Association and the Sierra Leone Labour Congress. Thompson said currently there were two vacant seats, due to the failure of the Bar and Labour Congress to send in their nominations.
There are currently eleven registered political parties in Serra Leone, NPD hopes to be the twelfth but its chance of contesting in the much anticipated 2018 general elections looks slim in light of the current situation. Despite the seeming division, the group is however united in their concern about the delay.
According to its press statement, it had fulfilled every requirement as demanded by the commission.
“… the NPD is gravely concerned that it may remain unregistered as a political party at law, even though we are quite capable of efficiently participating in Sierra Leone’s electoral and political process,” it said, calling on the PPRC “to set the stage for the forthcoming elections” and “to act timeously in ensuring and enhancing our right to associate and participate…”
But Chairman Thompson insisted that he couldn’t do anything without the cooperation of the other members of the Commission. He said they needed only three people to form a quorum.
“You cannot force me to do an illegal act,” he said.
According to the PPRC Act 2002, the nominating institutions are required to send names of their nominees to the President who will then send the names to parliament for approval. This process often takes long time to complete.
© Politico 19/07/16
