Hon. Paul Nji Tumasang: “Party Discipline Cannot Obstruct Democracy”

Social Democratic Front (SDF) Member of Parliament.

“A political party is an organization and organizations have rules. Members of that organization if they are sent into a structure like the National Assembly they are expected to try to defend the opinions of the organization and defend what the organization presented to the populations, that is the manifesto before they were elected to represented them in a structure like the National Assembly.  So, party discipline is important at that level. You should not go out of the ambit of what the party that campaigned for you to be voted into parliament presented to the population and expects of you. As a social democrat in parliament, I should be trying as much as possible to defend the ideals of social democracy knowing that if the party wins the majority in parliament, we will apply the manifesto of the SDF party. As a politician there is also what we call conscience. You cannot go against your conscience just because of what you call party discipline. Party discipline should be followed in such a way that it marries your conscience.

Party discipline cannot obstruct democracy if what the official of the party is doing falls in line with the manifesto. That the party democratically put in place a manifesto which is sold to the population, the population accepted the manifesto and elected into the council or into parliament.  At that level, party discipline is not obstructing democracy. A member of the party should be able to...