2025 presidential election: SDF justifies why not joining opposition coalition against Biya.

This was during the SDF’s National Executive Committee, NEC, meeting held at the party’s Yaounde secretariat.

The National Chairman of the party, Hon Osih Joshua, who spoke to newsmen during the gathering, said ongoing coalitions being formed in the country have been built on shaky foundations.

The lawmaker representing Littoral Centre at the National Assembly was blunt that the coalitions lack a clear vision, stating that the SDF wasn’t ready to join any such movement.

Osih who came fourth during the 2018 presidential election regretted that: “It is unfortunate that the plan of the CPDM is working perfectly; that is to try to make Cameroonians understand that in the absence of a coalition, nobody can beat Mr Biya”.

The politician stated that: “I will like to say that a coalition is not done around individuals, it is done around ideologies and a political programme”.

He added that: “The worst thing that can happen to a country is to have two parties coming to power; one that is a social democratic party that wants federalism and another for instance is in a Jacobin state. So, the two wouldn’t be able to work together and that will be catastrophic for the country. So, we first of all have to publish our political programmes and secondly, we have to see how those political programmes can be merged, one into the other and once we have done that, we can now see how we can make concessions to move further”.

Quizzed on how prepared the SDF was ahead of next year’s polls, Hon Osih was of the affirmative that the party wasn’t asleep.

“We at the SDF have been working very hard. We are finalising our political programme and we will present that to Cameroonians in an event that will be held in the coming days and you will all be invited,” he said.

Hon Osih disclosed that: “Our programme is about four pillars and 11 key points. I will like to say that one of the cardinal dispensations in that programme is that we are proposing a constitutional conference to be held and we think that we need to go into a political transition that in our opinion will take a maximum of three years”.

He was optimistic that “the constitutional conference will be able to usher in a new social pact, a new social contract between Cameroonians”.

Osih regretted that: “Cameroonians no longer live together and it is urgent that we bring back confidence to Cameroonians for their country and that has to be done by revisiting the constitution of this country. We feel that a constitutional conference can do that work and will have the legitimacy to do it”.

“We will work very hard to make sure that the new constitution of this country; the second republic for which we have been fighting for the past 34 years comes out with a federal structure. We will put in as much as possible parliamentary powers so that we can come out of this dictatorship in which we are in which the constitution gives all powers to the president,” he added.

“We believe in federalism and federalism is not about geography. Some people think federalism is to separate Anglophones from Francophones,” Osih continued.

Meanwhile, in commenting on the extension of the mandates of parliamentarians and councillors, Osih noted that “Cameroonians need to understand that we can’t have a developed country, we can’t have economic growth, peace, we can’t have all those things we are looking for if we don’t have democratic principles that are respected”.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3259 of Monday October 14, 2024