Deficit of political will in Cameroon! Was there any real lesson for Cameroon in South Africa’s general elections?

The lesson for Cameroon from the recent general elections in South Africa was not so much that they were free and fair but that the S.A. government had willed that elections be so. A similar will for credible elections has also recently been expressed in successful elections in other African countries. How is it that Cameroon is still unable to summon a similar will? Still, the absence of political will has permeated the entire fabric of the Biya regime, making Cameroon more and more of a shadow of its more successful early start in Africa.

The will is that human faculty that decides. It is a decision that gives purpose and prescribes a course of action. But having a will does not always mean using it, and doing so in a purposeful way. Where the will is withheld from where it was expected, its absence denies progress. It is common to hear it said that most of Cameroon’s problems arise from the absence of a political will, meaning Paul Biya’s unwillingness.
As soon as he got to work a fortnight ago, Samuel Fonkam Azu’u, ELECAM’s board chair went off to Pretoria, on invitation, to witness South Africa’s general elections that took place the same week.

The question on many lips as he left was what he had expected to learn from the elections which passed off so well. Not surprisingly Fonkam didn’t make a statement upon his return, given his publicised departure. That quiet return was only understandable. The real lesson from the recent and other elections in South Africa was not how transparent they were and have always been. The real lesson for Cameroon is the political will that decided that elections would at all times be transparent and reflect the voters’ will.
No doubt Fonkam Azu’u didn’t have to be personally present in Pretoria to learn that fact. Before the South African elections there were local elections in Senegal in which the ruling socialist party of Adoulaye Wade lost hands down. The government was defeated in almost all major towns, including Dakar the capital. Where did Senegal find the political will to organise transparent elections?

Even before then Ghana had had a credible election that led to a change of president. The new man happened to be an opposition candidate who won by a razor-thin margin. How did the Ghanaians summon the will to run a credible election?
The same question can be asked of Sierra Leone and Liberia who emerged from long years of civil war to summon the political will for clean and clear elections whose outcomes reflected the people’s will? After the controversy about the strong CPDM membership of ELECAM, sources close to the electoral organ say the members have expressed determination to do all in their power to have future elections in Cameroon transparent.
Isn’t that understandable; perhaps even encouraged by the government? Wasn’t that the same scenario before the flawed legislative elections of July 2007? With everything clearly not going well with the preparations Paul Biya encouraged Marafa, the MINATD chief directly responsible for the elections, to try with all his intelligence to fool western diplomats to believe that all was fine and that the elections would be free, fair and transparent.

Regime bashing

We know what became of the elections and particularly the western diplomats’ bashing of the regime over the ‘elections that were a lost opportunity for democratic advance’ in Cameroon.
The point about transparency in an election is that it is first and foremost a decision taken by the government, and in the case of Cameroon by Paul Biya. Until that will is expressed the rest counts for nothing. This is a fact that Fonkam Azu’u must reckon with.
No matter how over brimming may be his and his colleagues’ goodwill to work honestly, the truth of the matter is that they are already compromised; their hands are much too tied for them to act otherwise. What can they do to change Paul Biya’s unwillingness to have transparent elections?

Had the president lived up his promise to have transparent elections in Cameroon he would have created, as he also promised, an ‘independent election management organ’ as different from ELECAM. ELECAM is as such a counterfeit of the real thing.
The very structure and functioning of ELECAM point to the result expected of it. And to make assurance doubly sure Paul Biya further appointed members who did not only belong to the CPDM party but also owe it a debt of gratitude for their careers and other big favours rendered them in the past. If Paul Biya is as clear as crystal in what he wants, let him also acknowledge that no one is fooled. Not even the determination of ELECAM members to be honest makes sense to anyone.
The inescapable conclusion is that ELECAM is a translation of the absence of Paul Biya’s will to have credible elections in Cameroon. Isn’t it foolhardy and even dangerous for Fonkam Azu’u and his colleagues to think and even say that they can change things through the use of their goodwill? The reason for the president’s unwillingness to have credible elections is every Cameroonian’s knowledge. Paul Biya and his CPDM party will be the instant losers in any credible election in Cameroon. They have remained so long in power and done so poorly that the voter wants a change.

And isn’t it only fair game to have a change after 29 years (by 2011)?
The problem of the president’s unwillingness to change things for the better is not limited to elections. Paul Biya is unenthusiastic about reforming other key institutions such as freeing the courts which continue to be under government control.
It is also not understandable why Paul Biya is reluctant to clean the system of human rights abuse. Why does he refuse to free the national commission for human rights to fight the extensive abuse of citizens’ rights that are mostly perpetrated by law enforcement agents?
Furthermore, why does the president refuse to order the systematic emptying of prisons that are three-quarters full of detainees who have spent months and years uncharged or untried? How does that hinder Biya’s grip on power?

Ahmadou Ahidjo

And that is still not all about the lack of political will in Cameroon. Disturbingly, Paul Biya does not have a good record of socioeconomic development. This newspaper is by no means an admirer of Ahmadou Ahidjo. He established many of the prejudices and injustices that have since shaped the Cameroon of today.
Yet it must be admitted in fairness that in spite of his self-imposed limitations, he did his best. For almost all of his twenty-two years as president, Ahidjo kept the economy growing at a steady 7% of GDP.
He had many wrong priorities. He invested too much in developing a mammoth public sector at the very high cost of the private sector that he deliberately neglected because he feared that he would in the process benefit and strengthen Anglophones and the Bamileke of the West, which two groups had an early start in business.

Ahidjo did not build roads nor did he pay enough attention to primary and secondary education. His emphasis on food self-sufficiency was good but he would have put this in the hands of the private sector. All said, Ahidjo put Cameroon far ahead of other African countries, especially the Francophone ones, when it came to economic development. He called his economic model the contradictory name of ‘planned liberalism.’
Flattered by foreign press reviews and fellow Africans, Ahidjo even dreamed of an economic take-off (after Rostow’s stages of economic growth) when he organised a huge celebration in 1970 to honour ten years of independence.

When he retired in 1982 he handed over a healthy economy at 7% growth rate, a robust treasury and a negligible foreign debt. Under Paul Biya much of Ahijo’s initiatives were abandoned and un-replaced. Decline set in almost immediately followed by a steep recession that lasted about twelve years.

Economic growth has been much too feeble to pull the country out of the effects of the decade-long free fall of the economy. Growth rate, once at about 5% in the late 1990s, has since been falling steadily and presently stands at 3.2%. The reality of that rate is that Cameroon is in socioeconomic decline.
With the recession came poverty, the acceleration of unemployment, disease, crime and the galloping cost of living which further intensified misery.
Since 1997 the government acknowledged poverty as a national problem but has so far been unable to resolve it.
The answer to the fast shrinking economy and all those unhappy consequences would have been a bold stimulus package to give the economy the means of growth and expansion. That, we are sorry, is unlikely to come in the near future. For that to happen there must first be a strong will to move the economy in the right direction.

Shock therapy

Last year the government was unmoved by a nation-wide anti-government uprising by the masses against deplorable existence, what many still consider was shock therapy. The measures adopted were too few, too superficial and ineffective. It will probably require a greater shock to shake the government out of its lethargy.
The absence of political will seems to have permeated the entire Biya system. Even after long years of complaints about a grossly inefficient administrative system the government has refused to budge on the matter. It takes more than a year for a foreign company in Cameroon to begin business. The same absence of political will is at the origin of the absence of cohesion among the countries of the central African sub-region. The unwillingness to apply signed and ratified conventions makes CEMAC a wasted effort.

It takes a truck of goods from Douala port sixty days or more to travel to neighbouring Chad, twice as long as the freight time of the goods from Shanghai! At stake is the non-respect of conventions and corruption.
It may not appear obvious yet it is Paul Biya’s failed political will that is still fundamental to the decline of Cameroon’s football. A month ago Cameroonians suffered a rude shock when Togo beat the Indomitable Lions in the CAN/World Cup football series.
The unexpected defeat sparked fears that Cameroon might not again qualify for the 2010 World Cup which it failed to do in 2006, the first time in about two decades!

The defeat also served to bring home the painful reality, which had been much avoided in the past, that at last Cameroon’s football was clearly on the decline.

Not only is the government in a leaden slumber, its strict centralised and sluggish administrative structure denies any decision taking at any level other than at the very top. That makes the government unable to act in time on any situation. The result is that the government never anticipates or takes charge of any situation until the full damage has come home.

In the final analysis the lack of political will to modernise Cameroon in all key areas of socioeconomic development have held the country much too far behind on its development.
The early lead that Cameroon had over other African countries even with the faltering efforts of Ahmadou Ahidjo has been erased. At international conferences it is common to meet fellow Africans who remember Cameroon as the leader others looked up to, lament over the failure of Cameroon.
Why does Paul Biya deny Cameroon its necessary modernisation? Why would he define his political survival in so narrow and self-centred way that imperils the nation’s progress?

Source: The Herald