The International Women’s Day has come and gone. As a prelude to it, the National Professional Media Women (NAPMEW) organized a flyer launch at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) in Yaounde as part of their advocacy action against violence on women in Cameroon. During the occasion, Dr Reinhold Plate, the Resident Representative of FES in Cameroon recalled the life of a formidable woman, Clara Eissner Zetkin.

History has it that the International Women's Day was devised by Clara Eissner Zetkin (1857 – 1933), a German feminist Marxist. She was elected to the German Reichstag (Parliament) in 1920. On August 30, 1932, although she was blind and sick, she defied Nazi death threats and opened the session of the Reichstag, as the oldest member of the House. She used the occasion to speak for more than an hour on the communist and feminist causes she believed in, vehemently denouncing fascism as a most bestial form of monopoly capitalist rule, and the chains of sex slavery which she considered the most oppressive class slavery. She died barely a year after that historic speech!

It is in this context that we introduce P.C. Fonso, a third term parliamentarian who is also the oldest member of the Cameroon Parliament. He is very sociable, jovial and talkative; for these traits, he has earned "enjoy" as a sobriquet. He is not opinionated, and usually hardly speaks before he knows the position of the "boss". He is in the league of retirees – elderly statesmen – who jumped into the SDF bandwagon to spend a comfortable retirement as "politicians" . They trumped the rest with their "experience" , and easily worked their way into positions of influence because of the general inexperience of the leadership that emerged in the ‘90s. Like many others who saw the SDF as the harbinger of "change" and got swept into it, his politics seem to be grounded mainly on self-interest.

This may explain why, unlike Clara Zetkin, he does not think that he can use the platform offered him in Parliament by his age to address causes dear to him, like why he thinks that "social democracy" would be the best option for Cameroon of the third republic; decrying electoral fraud and extolling free and fair elections and independent electoral commissions that are the bulwark of such elections; highlighting the several ills that are eating into the fabric of the Cameroon society while the executive branch looks on; calling for the amendment of electoral laws to streamline them with the new dispensation provided by the partisan ELECAM, and much more! This would be quite effective from the Presidium of Parliament! Interestingly, the spokesperson of the Cameroon Democratic Union (CDU) declared that it did not matter whether Fonso took up the challenge or not!

It is incredible that Fonso’s party and Parliamentary Group are feigning ignorance of his apparent naivety, as if missing the opportunity to chair the opening session the first time was not enough to sensitise them to their historic duty. They prefer dancing to the tune of Lenin’s famous saying: "One step forward, two steps back"! First step: "No Good Laws, No Elections"; second step: "Convention affirms that we will participate massively in all future elections, no matter the electoral laws; such participation will ensure the effective fight against electoral fraud in order to make sure that all perpetrators of such fraud pay the price for their treasonable and unpatriotic acts..."; third step: "No ELECAM, No Elections"; fourth step: "No Elections With ELECAM"!!

Although realism, pragmatism, practicality and flexibility should always guide the actions of politicians, principles should be for them like oxygen is for life; they should live by them! In politics, it is always easy to overrun a fragile will; principles are the stuff with which a strong will that resists all assaults is built. For political parties, clearly thought out principles should always be seen to guide their actions. In this light, how come everybody across the board was praising "new" Government Delegates appointed, including those who stand for the principle of electing Mayors to the helm of Councils, no matter their size? How come everybody, for or against such appointments, attended installation ceremonies, as if nothing is wrong with appointed "Mayors"?

In all this confusion, although it is clear that the advent of ELECAM calls for the urgent cleaning up of electoral laws in Cameroon, Parliament is not in a hurry; ELECAM is not in a hurry; indeed, nobody is in a hurry! Every MP interviewed has declared that the parliamentary session will be uneventful, as if tabling a private member’s bill to amend electoral laws to conform to the new dispensation would not draw enough attention to the need! Or is it because of ..."No Elections With ELECAM"?

Many zealots must be spoiling for drawing Fonso’s blood with 8.2 to cover up the joke for which party, parliamentary group and Fonso himself bear the blame! This is why it is appropriate to recall an article of a friend of Clara Eissner Zetkin - Rosa Luxemburg - titled "Order Reigns in Berlin" in which she castigated guardians of "order" who rejoiced without noticing that "an order which must be periodically maintained by bloody butchery is steadily approaching its historical destiny, its doom". The mirror image of the "party of order" is our "party of discipline". There is no need for them to add another 8.2 purge to the pile because it only moves them closer to their doom.

Tazoacha Asonganyi
Yaounde.

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