One of the founders and long serving President of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) is calling for an interim leadership to manage the affairs of that body until there is a new election to fill its vacancies.
Mr. James Cambric Dennis said the Union’s impasse cannot be resolved in court without those who founded the organization and still alive with no input in the ongoing “power struggle” which has brought the journalism profession in the country to public disgrace.
Dennis, 93, said he and others that founded the Union involvement in resolving the ongoing conflict should not be ignored knowing fully that they are around and they need to be reached because without them the present matter will not be resolved.
“This is the first major power struggle to have engulfed the Union since its formation almost 60 years now. We have never had this in the past but because of the greed for power, the Union has become a laughing stock to the public,” he told the media recently in Monrovia.
Dennis’ suggestion for interim body is in consonance with Article 18 Section 6 of the Union’s Constitution and By-laws which states: “Vacancy occurring in the Union for whatever reason shall be filled through by-election within sixty days of the occurrence of that vacancy. Such by-election shall be overseen by a three-man committee to be named by the Union’s leadership, within three weeks of the vacancy and election shall be by secret ballot.”
The PUL’s first president was a publisher and editor of the Daily Listener and Liberian Star Newspapers as well as Palm Magazine in the 60s and 70s respectively.
He is one of the founding members elected and served the Union for 14 years from 1966 until 1980. During his tenure, he had to intercede with President William V. S. Tubman when journalists got into trouble, and was successful in gaining Tuan Wreh’s release from prison in 1966.
For weeks now, the Union has been engulfed with “fraudulent” electoral conflict following a “sham” elective congress held on Saturday, November 23, in Gbarnga, Bong County, which prompted the outgoing leadership as a result of pressure to announce media actors committee to mediate.
This followed when one of the parties in the process felt aggrieved and ran to the Supreme Court where Justice in Chamber, Yussif Kaba had to issue a weeklong ultimatum mandating the Union to resolve its internal conflict peacefully, and if not, the court shall make a determination.
On Wednesday, November 30, the ultimatum given the Union ended but the impasse remains unsettled thereby prompting the mediators to beg for two weeks’ extension in an effort to reach out to the contending parties.
This is the third electoral dispute to have engulfed the journalists’ trade union but the present has become denigrated to the extent that it has drawn public attention on ground that it has become more of a quagmire.
The first being in 2013 and second 2019 when the Union was taken to court for alleged fraudulent electoral activities or malpractices.
