Editorial: The Expulsion and Resignation of Cllr. Tubman

The Need to Speculate and Ask

Last week the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) in a press statement signed by its Secretary General, Acarous Gray, and its Acting Chairman, Adama Sambolah, indicated that it had removed Cllr. Winston A. Tubman from the standard bearership and had further expelled him from the party. In giving reasons for his removal from the standard bearership, the press statement said: “Cllr. Tubman’s removal as Standard Bearer of the institution is in fulfillment of a one-term agreement reached with the organization, which required a dutiful obligation to voluntarily relinquish office within a thirty-day period after the conduct of general and presidential elections 2011.

This timely decision by the party has become especially judicious, considering the post-ultimatum time luxury accorded him to prepare for a convenient exit.” While we may not be privy to the one-term agreement signed between Cllr. Tubman and the CDC, it beats our imagination that a political party, prior to holding general elections, would enter a you-have-to-resign-after-thirty-day contract with its standard bearer. This seems to be a strange arrangement, and the circumstances that gave rise to this arrangement may necessarily be strange. We would like the CDC to make that agreement public.

That said, we are forced to ask: What if the CDC, having Cllr. Tubman as the Standard Bearer, had won the 2011 presidential elections? Would the party have still demanded Cllr. Tubman’s resignation after the thirty days, or are they doing it in the manner they have done it because the party didn’t win? This is an interesting development; hence, we ask again: If the CDC had won the presidential election and their Standard Bearer, Cllr. Tubman, had been inaugurated on January 16, would the party have still relieved him of the standard bearership and expelled him from the CDC as they have done?

If the answer is No, then why does it only happen when the party suffers a loss?

Something fishy may be going on here because we refuse to believe that the CDC, if it had won the 2011 elections, would have still expelled Cllr. Tubman from the party and removed him from the standard bearership in the manner it has done.

On the other hand, if the answer to the question is Yes, then there is a need to be concerned because, as some have said, the removal of Cllr. Tubman from the standard bearership resurrects an election-time rumor indicating that, if the CDC were to win, there was some diabolic pre-arrangement “to get rid” of Cllr. Tubman and make the second partisan take over the government.

The arguments were that Cllr. Tubman was a total stranger in the party, that CDCians have no respect for him and that they (CDCians) prefer a President Weah, not a President Tubman. Although we do not give credence to such a rumor, recent developments may force us to re-think about the rumor. It’s no wonder many have gleefully said, “Thank God CDC did not win the 2011 presidential election.”

There may be some logic to their madness.