Bad Governance: Cameroon's electoral body NEO, publishes report one year after elections,

The report endorses the twin elections of July 2007 as was widely expected.

By Yemti Harry Ndienla

The election body, National Elections Observatory (NEO) created by the government of Cameroon to oversee the electoral system in the country has published its report one full year after the legislative and local elections took place took place in the country.

The report which to nobody’s surprise offers nothing unexpected endorses the twin elections as on the whole credible. It nevertheless admitted that there were irregularities, but not such as to diminish the credibility of the elections.

The strongly pro-government organ declared in its belated report that in spite of irregularities here and there, the twin elections were credible.

Roland Akong of the Herald Newspaper says “the surprise would have been that it took so long to announce its report if it had condemned the election as marred by irregularities”.

It should be noted here that the 2007 elections were some of the most irregular electoral exercises in Cameroon in recent years. Three Western embassies namely, the US, the British and the Dutch, issued a joint statement condemning the election unreservedly as flawed and as “a missed opportunity” for the advancement of democracy in country.

NEO's president François-Xavier Mbouyom, provoked much laughter and even cat-calls indicting disbelief when he explained why it took NEO so long to publish its report.

Hear him “The report was delayed at the printing press because of the February strike. And even before the report could be compiled to be sent to the printing press, it took considerable time to assemble reports from NEO’s 2000 polling stations and 2000 NEO staff across the length and breadth of Cameroon.”

Asked about the relevance he gave the report at this point in time, Mbouyom admitted that it was only good for archival purposes to serve as a reference in future.

The fact is that had Election Cameroon (ELECAM), the new election organising body been put in place in June as had been expected, NEO would have ceased to exist. How would have the report been published then if NEO’s existence was not extended for another six months to correspond with the extension of ELECAM.
Reason why commentators believe the report was a clear case of selling after the market.