EU Condemns Election Management Transfer in Cameroon

 By Tansa Musa
Cameroon’s democ­ra­ti­sa­tion process has suf­fered a seri­ous set­back this year after the gov­ern­ment trans­ferred elec­tions man­age­ment from the Min­istry of Ter­ri­to­r­ial Admin­is­tra­tion (MINAT) to the rul­ing Cameroon People’s Demo­c­ra­tic Move­ment (CPDM) party of Pres­i­dent Paul Biya, says the head of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion del­e­ga­tion in Yaounde.

“We strongly applauded the government’s deci­sion in 2006 to cre­ate an inde­pen­dent body Elec­tions Cameroon (ELECAM) to man­age elec­tions in the coun­try, believ­ing that this would be the end of flawed polls that has almost resulted in social unrest many times, and a major step for­ward in the democ­ra­ti­sa­tion process,” Javier Puyol told a press con­fer­ence in Yaounde on Friday.

“But we were very dis­ap­pointed this year when the author­i­ties appointed the 12 board mem­bers of ELECAM and 11 of them were mem­bers of the cen­tral com­mit­tee and polit­i­cal bureau of the rul­ing party. In other words, this sim­ply meant trans­fer­ing the task of elec­tions organ­i­sa­tion from MINAT to one of the par­ties in con­test, actu­ally mak­ing it a player and ref­eree at the same time. This was a missed oppor­tu­nity to advance the democ­ra­ti­sa­tion process. This is regret­table. Its a pity. It is already a false start for the 2011 pres­i­den­tial poll which is just by the cor­ner. That elec­tion has already lost its creadibility.”

The Cameroon gov­ern­ment decided to cre­ate ELECAM as an inde­pen­dent elec­toral body in 2006 fol­low­ing per­sis­tent com­plains from the oppo­si­tion, the civil soci­ety and the donor com­mu­nity that pre­vi­ous elec­tions organ­ised by MINAT since the coun­try returned to mul­ti­par­tism in 1991, were grossly irreg­u­lar and designed to favour the CPDM. The law cre­at­ing the body stip­u­lates clearly that mem­bers of its board “shall be des­ig­nated from the midst of inde­pen­dent per­son­al­i­ties of Cameroon­ian nation­al­ity, reputed for their stature, moral upright­ness, intel­lec­tual hon­esty, patri­o­tism, neu­tral­ity and impartiality.”

The move was widely acclaimed as a major step for­ward. Unfor­tu­nately, the spir­its of Cameroo­ni­ans, includ­ing mil­i­tants of the rul­ing party them­selves, were damp­ened when in May pres­i­dent Biya appointed only the big guns of his party — three mem­bers of the polit­i­cal bureau and five mem­bers of the cen­tral com­mit­tee — as mem­bers of ELECAM. This has gen­er­ated wide­spread con­dem­na­tion from within the coun­try and out­side, with the main oppo­si­tion Social Demo­c­ra­tic Front (SDF) party already threat­en­ing “to do every­thing to ensure that the 2011 pres­i­den­tial poll does not hold.

Puyol said he under­stood Cameroo­ni­ans’ frus­tra­tions with the elec­toral sys­tem and appealed to the author­i­ties to do some­thing to regain the people’s con­fi­dence in the process. Fail­ure to do this, he said he fore­sees reg­is­tra­tion on the voter’s list and turn-out fur­ther declin­ing and cast­ing doubts over the legit­i­macy of those in authority.
“It is sad that Cameroon which has a pop­u­la­tion of close to 20 mil­lion inhab­i­tants has never suc­ceeded to reg­is­ter up to 5 mil­lion on the voter list. Things could be worst in the 2011 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and that is not good for the coun­try,” he stated.

Observers in the nation’s cap­i­tal say the appoint­ments only came to con­firm Biya’s deter­mi­na­tion to be pres­i­dent of Cameroon for life. In April 2008, after 26 years of rule, Biya, using his party’s fraud­u­lent major­ity in the National Assem­bly (157 of 180 seats), mod­i­fied the con­sti­tu­tion by sup­press­ing the two-term man­date limit, which means he can run again for as many terms as he wants. The 76-year old Biya came to power in 1982 as the hand-picked suc­ces­sor of for­mer head of state Ahmadou Ahidjo. He is today one of Africa’s longest serv­ing rulers

Courtesy:www.newstimeafrica.com (Posted on November 15 )