By Yerima Kini Nsom

Several members of the Central Committee of the CPDM party, The Post learnt, have called upon their Chairman, President Paul Biya, to convene an ordinary congress of the party. They made the demand during the ongoing consultations with the Secretary General, Rene Emmanuel Sadi, who began consulting Central Committee members on August 24 at the party headquarters in Yaounde.

Rene Said began consultations with Central Committee members from the Centre Region and later held separate working sessions with members from West and Adamawa Regions. By August 31, he is expected to have discussed with the over 128 remaining CPDM Central Committee members in the ten regions.

On August 26, the CPDM Scribe received Central Committee members from the Northwest and Southwest Regions. Speaking to the press, one of them, HRH Nfor Tabetando, said their discussions were hinged on mapping out strategies to revamp the party's activities. The CPDM bigwig from Manyu Division said they equally discussed the ordinary congress of the party to be convened by the party's Chairman.

The consultations, CPDM sources say, constitute a tacit way of mobilising the various party actors for the 2011 election as well as galvanising support for Biya's candidacy. The consultations took place behind closed doors. The party's constitution provides that an ordinary congress of the party holds every five years. CPDM barons are ill at ease that such a congress has not taken place for a very long time.

One Central Committee member, who asked not to be named, told The Post that the failure of the party hierarchy to convene an ordinary congress for over a decade has stalled the progress of the party. For one thing, he said, over 20 members of the Central Committee, including Wilfred Mbelem, Etienne Tsama, Tsanga Abanda, have died. Their positions are vacant, he said. In the same vein, two members of that body, Gerard Emmanuel Ondo Ndong and Pierre Desire Engo are serving prison sentences in Kondengui prison.

The filling of their vacancies, CPDM insiders hold, can only be sanctioned by an ordinary congress. Such a move, they hold, will help to ward off some mistakes that have been made in the past. "In 2007, some names of the Central Committee members who had long died still featured in the list of resource persons," they recalled. Party militants want an ordinary congress in view of the upcoming 2011 Presidential Election. Despite several calls on Biya to run next year's presidential race, the congress is expected to add its voice to that of party's militants.