Ahead of the ensuing 2023 Presidential and Legislative Elections, one of the constituent members of the Coalition for Democratic Change is said to be hit by internal crisis.
Recently, the NPP March 4, 2023 reached a decision to suspend its Chairman, James Biney, by a faction of the National Executive Committee due to what it termed as acts incompatible to the party’s norms.
Following a day, on March 5, 2023, NPP in consultation with members of the National Executive Committee of the National Patriotic Party, the Party announced with immediate effect the suspension of partisans George S. Mulbah and Madam Jewel Howard Taylor for convening an illegal and unconstitutional gathering in the name of the National Executive Committee of the Party at which time, he and Madam Taylor claimed to have suspended the duly elected Chairman of the Party.
Their deliberate action constitutes a breach of the constitution of the Party and represents defiance of the ruling of the Honorable Supreme Court.
Article 5, Sec. 1 of the NPP constitution provides that all National Executive Committee meetings and National Conventions of the NPP are called and presided over by the National Chairman.
Article 5, Sec. 6 provides that all citations for meetings duly authorized are issued by the Secretary General of the Party.
None of these constitutional requirements were obtained to qualify the meeting as being an NEC meeting.
Madam Taylor’s past actions of convening what she referred to as NPP National Executive Committee meetings were prohibited by the Honorable Supreme Court.
The court also held that all National Executive Committee meetings of the National Patriotic Party conducted outside of the constitutional process and procedures laid down in the party’s constitution were illegal, unconstitutional, and illegitimate and decisions therefrom are illegal and reversible.
“We call on all our partisans around the country and abroad NOT to give credence to her purported NEC meeting convened at her office, near the German Embassy in Monrovia, and the so-called suspension of the duly elected and bona fide Chairman of the Party,” a press statement attested to by James Biney stated.
“We also call on the general public, political parties and the National Elections Commission to not do business with these two persons in the name of the party as their action in defiance of the Supreme Court’s ruling will render any subsequent dealing with them illegal,” the Press release stated.
Any would-be candidate of the party who gets his or her registration papers to participate in the 2023 elections signed by partisan George Mulbah will have such registration legally challenged and will have himself or herself to blame.
