Council Election Reruns in Cameroon: Political parties preach anti-fraud, vigilance

Court rejects CPDM request for disqualification of SDF list

By Yemti Harry Ndienla

Following wide spread irregularities during the last twin elections of 22^nd July 2007, in Cameroon, the country's supreme court ruled in one of the complaints tabled by the opposition that fresh municipal elections be conducted in Doula V constituency in the littoral province. Consequently, the election will take place next 26^th October, 2008.So far, campaigns for the race have started and the UPC, commonly deemed underdogs in the race is leaving no stone unturned in its bid to cajole voters. Militants of the party, who claim to have gone furthest in door-to-door campaigns, recently thronged the Bedi-Malange congregation of the Evangelical Church of Cameroon (EEC), to implore divine intervention ahead of the 26 October council election reruns. Politicking and religion witnessed a strange blend as elders of the church tapped inspiration from Mathew 22:1-14. Parish elder, Mankolo Titi, said the UPC was God’s chosen political party in Douala V and would win no matter what. The party’s national secretary for communications and propaganda, Adolphe Papy Ndoumbe, who presented the UPC’s manifesto for the reruns in church, said the party will improve the livelihoods of the population if it wins. He said the party, one of the oldest in Cameroon , will count on its experience and history of sacrifice to the country. The UPC has repartitioned the constituency into 48 zones for its proximity campaign strategy. The party’s council list is headed by 74-year-old Emmanuel Kote who spent 16 years in prison for his UPC inclination.
Meanwhile other opposition political parties particularly the SDF have been preaching peace, anti-fraud, and vigilance. The SDF and UPC have continued issuing threats of unspecified action in the case of rigging as the countdown to the rerun narrows. According to Jean Michel Nitcheu, the party’s provincial chair, elections fraudsters will have it hot from watchdogs due deployment on the eve of the poll. He told representatives of the National Elections Observatory at a heated meeting that the SDF was in possession of evidence of a vast rigging machine put in place by the CPDM.

The SDF recently flagged off its campaign in the Douala V council area with a motorized caravan featuring party bigwigs who combed 52 neighborhoods in the municipality. High on the menu of instructions to militants, from party contender for the post of mayor, Abel Elimbi Lobe through influential member Edouard Kembeng to provincial chair, Jean Michel Nitcheu, were reverberating calls for them to sanction the “election-rigging CPDM” come 26 October and especially watch out for electoral fraud. According to Elimbi Lobe, the CPDM has achieved virtually nothing for six years at the council helm. He promised to build a council educational establishment to provide low-cost education; as well as optimize municipal resources to prop a potentially rich business sector which he claimed had remained dormant under the CPDM reign in Douala V. He said nonchalance by the CPDM-led council had only engendered urban disorder which the SDF intends to check by instilling respect for the law. He called on the electorate to consolidate the confidence bestowed in the SDF when it gave it a relative majority at the 30 September legislative rerun in the constituency. The SDF was flanked by militants from Jean Jacque Ekindi’s MP who said they were fully behind the SDF and would contribute everything for the fellow opposition party to win the Douala V Council.
The CPDM on its part has dispatched an impressive delegation to Douala led by Central Committee and Wouri divisional campaign commission president, Camille Ekindi. He urged comrades to bury their hatchets and unite behind Francoise Foning to authenticate the party’s hegemony in the constituency. Speaking recently EKINDI, warned that internal bickering could compromise victory and called for unity. Outgoing Francoise Foning, Douala V mayor since 2002 appeared especially puffed. “I don’t have any campaigns to be making here. You all know that it is in your interests to give me and the CPDM victory in Douala V. Despite the insults from some of you, announcements of my death in advance and mudslinging, here I am and here I am to win,” she declared. Foning had earlier boasted that if election reruns are conducted a hundred times, she will win a hundred times. But Foning created enemies during last year’s primaries in which she was accused of using uncanny methods to eliminate opponents. These angry opponents are now said to be secretly campaigning for the opposition to punish Foning. But the CPDM seems desperate to rescue the famed party mascot.

Meanwhile Plans by the ruling CPDM to have the SDF list of contenders for the Douala V Council disqualified have been foiled. Incumbent mayor, Françoise Foning, last week filed a petition at the Supreme Court claiming that one of the candidates on the SDF list was registered under two constituencies.

However, a recent verdict by the country's supreme court cleared the SDF’s Gabriel Wato of the charge. It ruled that he was lawfully fit to contest the 26 October poll in Douala V and squashed the matter
The CPDM alleged that Wato, who previously registered in Douala 1 and now gunning for a post as councillor in Douala V, regularised his situation long before the 22 July 2007 elections whose results were annulled in Douala V. Though the court ruled that he was eligible to vote or vie as candidate for the SDF in the municipality, Foning’s lawyers who filed the complaint last week had appeared very upbeat. Penka Michel, a lawyer and member of the CPDM campaign commission for the Douala V rerun, said the matter constituted a serious electoral irregularity. He even went ahead to declare that the eventual disqualification of the SDF list would be commensurate with non-participation in the rerun.
On her part Foning who reacted from Belgium where she is attending a business meeting said she fully accepted the Supreme Court verdict but warned that the CPDM had noticed other irregularities ahead of the rerun and would seize the courts when the need arises.
The indicted SDF candidate described the move was a typical CPDM tactic intended to distract public opinion. He claimed he possessed legal documents to contradict the petition.