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afrol.com, 23 January - On the morning of Friday 19 January, the Minister of Internal Affairs and Local Enterprises, Clemente Ngonga Onguene, summoned on representatives from all the political parties legalised in Equatorial Guinea. The Government wanted support against the new political formation, the Democratic Opposition Front (FOD), recently created by several illegal parties and one legal party. The representatives had been called to the Ministry's headquarters in the old capital of Malabo to listen to Minister Onguene make a statement against the establishment of the FOD and ask for the legal parties' support against the FOD. One of the FOD's founding parties, the Grouping for Social Democracy (CPDS), had also been invited to the Ministry, and its representative was made the centre of attention. Minister Onguene accused the CPDS party of maintaining contacts with "illegal parties and unwanted persons" through its participation in the FOD. The other participants to the meeting reached a verbal agreement on asking the Equatorial Guinean judiciary to prohibit the CPDS party. One of the reasons given was that the FOD supports the use of violence. The Democratic Opposition Front (FOD) was established in Malabo only one month ago (22 December). It is made up by the CPDS party (legal), the Progress Part (PP, illegal), the Republican Democratic Front (FDR, not legalised) and squeezed out members of the formal oppositional parties ADP, PSD and UP. All these opposition parties are based in Equatorial Guinea and represent most of the national opposition to the regime of President Teodoro Obiang. The FOD says in a statement, protesting against the possible prohibition of the CPDS party, that it distances itself from Government allegations that it supports the use of violence. "The FOD is a directory of political parties that is bound by the basic principles of tolerance and the search for a permanent dialogue, principles which are not possible to combine with the support of violence or the undermining of State institutions," the joint statement says. Founding member, the Republican Democratic Front (FDR), is a new oppositional formation, which is still seeking a legal status. The front is mainly composed of earlier collaborators of the Obiang regime or of Equatorial Guinea's first dictatorship (of Macías Nguema), which have shifted over to the opposition. It finds substantial support in the Wele-Nzas region, the home of President Obiang and most of the ruling elite, thus imposing a threat on the President's party. The Progress Party (PP) was declared illegal by the Equatorial Guinean Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1998 after a failed invasion from Angola, headed by the party's historical leader Severo Moto. Even if it never was proven that the party members and leadership located in Equatorial Guinea were even informed about the intentions of their (at that time) leader, the Ministry's decision was later approved by a court order. At this time, Government officials repeatedly offered PP representatives to back on their charges against the party and help funding it if it were to make a declaration in favour of the President. This was refused, and the party remains illegal. The breakaway factions of the ADP, PCD y UP parties are the result of Government harassment against these formations. The process has been repeated after proven successful: at some advantageous moment the Government has been able to buy up the support of some executive member, who than has started to organise a frontal opposition against his comrades. Counting on the financial and logistic support of the regime, they have been able to achieve internal split and finally processes of division. Time being, there are two groups claiming the acronym ADP, as there are two PCDs and two UPs. The present legalised parties, with the exception of the CPDS, have been called "merely virtual formations", devoid of party members and only able to maintain themselves through explicit and secret financing of its leaders by the Equatorial Guinean regime. The unification of all parties in reality in opposition to the regime in the FOD has created, for the first time in independent Equatorial Guinea, an opposition force with potential strength. The will of the FOD to work within the legal framework defined by the Government makes it a possible challenger to President Obiang in the coming elections - if the party can manage to become legalised. The first test on this will be whether the so far only legal platform within the FOD, the CPDS, can maintain its legal status. Therefore, the political group reacts with an appeal to the Government, stating that the FOD "rejects the allegation that the CPDS has committed a supposed crime in meeting with the other parties. These parties are established by Equatorial Guineans in their plain political and civil right, which permits them, according to the law, to participate in the national political debate ... as the Head of State admitted in his year 2001 New Years speech." Source: Asodegue, FOD and afrol archives
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