POLITICS-CAMEROON:
So Many Candidates, So Little Enthusiasm
Sylvestre Tetchiada
Voting began Monday for presidential elections in Cameroon, where initial reports say the response to the poll has been lacklustre.
YAOUNDE, Oct 11 (IPS) - Thirteen candidates are vying for the presidency, an additional three having withdrawn over the weekend. However the incumbent, Paul Biya, is heavily-tipped to win the poll – this despite the fact that most of his campaigning was done by Cameroon’s prime minister, Peter Mafany Musonge.
Biya, who heads the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (Rassemblement démocratique du peuple camerounais, RDPC), won more than 90 percent of the vote during the last presidential election in 1997, which was boycotted by the opposition.
An earlier poll in 1992, the first presidential election held in Cameroon after the reintroduction of multi-party politics, was also won by Biya – although the opposition alleged widespread fraud at the polls. International observers also expressed reservations about the vote.
The RDPC leader has been in power for 22 years. He is only the second person to lead Cameroon since the country gained independence in 1960.
What challenge there is to Biya is being provided by John Fru Ndi, head of the Social Democratic Front (SDF), and Adamou Ndam Njoya: head of the Democratic Union of Cameroon, and candidate for the Coalition for National Reconciliation and Reconstruction (Coalition pour la réconciliation et la reconstruction nationals, CRRN).
Fru Ndi enjoys wide support amongst the country’s minority English-speakers (who account for about 20 percent of the population). Long a vociferous critic of Biya, he has pledged to step up the fight against poverty if he wins the election.
According to the 2004 Human Development Report, compiled by the United Nations Development Programme, almost one in five Cameroonians lives below the poverty line of a dollar a day.
"If you look at the state the country is in right now, you can’t call it poverty anymore: it’s...destitution," the Catholic archbishop of Douala, Christian Tumi, told IPS (Douala is the economic hub of Cameroon).
"Every week, I talk with average Cameroonians. When you listen to them and see, on the ground, what terrible conditions they live in you really wonder what the government has been doing for the past 22 years," he adds.
Fru Ndi has also promised to address the country’s energy shortages.
As IPS reported in August, intermittent power cuts are undermining economic growth in the country – and costing businesses that have already been established dearly. The energy crisis has been ascribed to the fact that equipment used in power plants is outdated – and to low water levels in two hydroelectric dams.
The eleven-party CRRN had previously also included Fru Ndi. However last month, the SDF leader withdrew from the coalition on the grounds that the selection of Ndam Njoya as presidential candidate had not been democratic.
The opposition’s inability to nominate a single candidate has been criticised by political observers, who say this may sink its chances of wresting power from Biya.
According to certain reports, the fracturing of the opposition may also be contributing to apathy at the polls – with many seeing little point in casting ballots for a vote that they see as Biya’s for the taking.
Although 4.6 million people were initially registered to vote, officials reduced the number of names on the voters’ roll to less than four million in recent days, saying the names which were removed had been registered to vote more than once. Cameroon’s population is put at over 16 million, of which about eight million are apparently eligible to cast ballots.
Despite this reduction of the voters roll, certain opposition groups remain sceptical of whether Monday’s election will be free and fair.
"We’re training our party militants to be on the lookout for the many ways the regime rigs elections. This time, the people will not be had," Jean Jacques Ekindi, candidate for the Progressive Movement, told IPS.
Hundreds of observers, including several from the Commonwealth and the International Francophone Organisation, are monitoring the election alongside local observers. Over 20,000 polling stations have been set up to allow people to take part in the election, which will be won by the candidate who garners the most votes.
Corruption in other sectors has also been the subject of considerable debate in the campaign, as have complaints from English speakers that they are marginalized within Cameroon.
This community, located along the country’s western border with Nigeria, is demanding that Cameroon re-adopt the federalist system of government it had at independence in 1960, until the end of September in 1961.
But, says Gregoire Owona – assistant general-secretary of the ruling RDPC, "A return to federalism would again call into question our national unity."
"It’s urgent that our candidate continue to fight against poverty and consolidate a government of law, democracy, stability, peace, and social cohesion," he told IPS (END/2004)
