Catholic Church spits fire on Cameroon’s Elections

Catholic Church spits fire on Cameroon’s Elections Says Computerization did not solve the problem of multiple registrations and multiple voting.

Catholic Bishops of the republic of Cameroon have joined their voices with those who have been criticizing the irregularities that characterized the twin elections that took place in Cameroon last month. According to a press release issued by the leaders of the Catholic Church in Cameroon the Bishops noted that though the 2007 twin elections took place in a seemingly better atmosphere than the last presidential election in 2004, there where lot of irregularities recorded. Thus the men of God noted with dismay that the computerization of voter’s registers did not solve the problem of multiple registration and multiple voting. The Bishop also enumerated other short comings in course of the elections to include voting without the presentation of national identity card and the none issuing of receipt to persons who registered on the voter’s register. The Catholic Church had on 22nd July, deployed some 1600 Christians to monitor the twin elections. And by implication their reports helped the Bishops to draw their conclusion. Christian Cardinal Tuni, Archbishop of Douala had on several occasions warned that bad elections were pulling Cameroon on the path of civil war. The Catholic Church it should be noted had protested against the organization of elections by MINATD and pressed for the creation of an independent election body and the formulation of a new electoral code because it judge prevailing conditions did not guarantee free and fair pools. Consequently the Church had come up with a proposed law and model of an independent election organ but the government seems not to like it for reasons the government best know But may Cameroonians who had been following the Church stand with matters on elections in Cameroon believe the church’s statement was too friendly to a government that they have always been hostile to. “I strongly believe the Bishop’s release had been watered down by government”, said Henry Nkamanyi, who agues that some church leaders had been in romance with government of recent Meanwhile members of the national elections observation (NEO) will meet in an extra ordinary general assembly on 7th August 2007 in Yaounde. The high part of the meeting that will last two-days will be NEO’s preliminary report on the observation of the July 22nd elections. Similarly the supreme court of Cameroon will from the same 7th August, 2007, begin hearing on petitions filed in after the twin elections on 22nd July 2007. But the hearing begins after government had already published list of winners of the elections as well as the election of majors and deputies of local councils. Reason why may are those Cameroon who doubt whether the supreme court would be able to change the table owing to the fact that most of the victories came from the ruling CPDM while petitions came from the opposition party especially the SDF with over 100. It should be noted here that the 22nd July polls were condemned as the worst organized in recent times and portrayed a bad sign for country’s democracy.

Courtesy - Harry Ndienla Yemti