Politics

7, October 2018

Will Biya’s branded condoms deliver victory? ⁰

Politician can do just about anything to ensure they clinch whatever seats they are contesting for.

Some would campaign by pouring money and other goodies such as food, clothes and decent merchandise to the electorates.

However, Cameroon President Paul Biya revolutionised the game during the final leg of his presidential campaign by distributing condoms with his face and messages calling for his re-election to citizens.

Biya, who has ruled the country for the past 35 years, or should we say his advisers thought it wise to have the words ”Je Vote Paul Biya”(I vote for Paul Biya) and a photo of the 85-yea-old president printed on both sides of the condoms.

It should be noted Cameroon will be going to the ballot to elect a new president on Sunday, October 7, and Biya’s team did all it could to remind voters to do the necessary come D-day.

His condom campaign however did not auger well with some people who claimed he should have distributed much useful things.

Others supported him saying he cared about his people and their health hence the move.

Despite the minor controversy, political analysts in the country hold that Biya is pitted to with the race yet again judging with latest poll.

Biya is Africa’s second-longest serving president having ruled Cameroon since November 1982.

Source: Tuko

7, October 2018

October 7: ‘Massive fraud’ planned for polls ⁰

An opposition contender who will seek election in Cameroon’s impending presidential polls alleged on Friday that a “massive fraud” is underway to ensure the sitting president wins a seventh term.

Maurice Kamto’s campaign chief Paul-Eric Kingue said that efforts to rig Sunday’s ballot “had the blessing” of the Elecam electoral commission.

“We won’t accept any result if this kind of fraud continues,” he said at a media briefing by Kamto’s Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) party in the capital Yaounde. Kingue called on party supporters to “fiercely resist” rigging.

The MRC has alleged that polling cards have been forged and that voter registration has been allowed to continue despite the process being officially closed. “In 62% of areas, the (ruling) Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party is still adding names to the voter roll,” said Kingue.

“But this year, 2018, will not be like 2011,” he vowed.

In the most recent presidential elections in that year, President Paul Biya won a sixth term in office with 78% of votes in polls the opposition and observers accused of being flawed. “We’re not preparing for war, but wherever there is fraud, there will be a firm response,” said Kingue.

Rumours have emerged in recent days of a possible coalition between opposition presidential contenders. Kamto’s campaign director confirmed that “talks were underway” with rival opposition hopeful Akere Muna – but Kingue was unable to confirm if a deal had been struck.

Biya, 85, has been in power for 35 years and will face-off against eight opposition contenders. The front-runners are Joshua Osih, Maurice Kamto and Akera Muna.

AFP

7, October 2018

Southern Cameroonians boycott Cameroun election as violence worsens ⁰

Many Cameroonians face being unable to vote in the country’s election on Sunday because of insecurity and fear driven by worsening violence in its anglophone regions.

Paul Biya, the 85-year-old who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, looks set to capitalise on a divided opposition to easily win his fifth election since reluctantly adopting a multiparty system in 1992.

Separatists in the English-speaking regions have announced a boycott of the poll, and many voters there have said they are too scared to go to the polls. At least 400 civilians have been killed in unrest in the past year, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.

“Who can vote when our brothers are dying? How can we even vote, when you don’t know how safe it will be?” asked Chimene Ngum, a 23-year-old student in Bamenda, capital of the anglophone Northwest region.

The rebellion that erupted in the country’s two anglophone regions was triggered by the violent repression of a peaceful protest a year ago, after lawyers complained that magistrates were being appointed to their courts despite their poor English. It spread to the regions’ teachers and students, then activists symbolically declared the two anglophone regions the independent republic of Ambazonia.

A taxi passes an electoral poster for President Paul Biya in Yaounde.

Biya’s government responded with a wave of arrests and killings.

For years, anglophones have felt deliberately sidelined and neglected, their infrastructure left to crumble. Last year, for instance, Biya’s home region was allocated almost twice the money that the anglophone regions got combined, the public investment budget shows, despite their vital importance to Cameroon’s economy. Much of the country’s oil production is off the coast of the Southwest region, and onshore are its biggest cocoa-growing areas.

Biya was due to visit Buea, the Southwest regional capital, on Wednesday for a rally, but called off his trip at the last minute after the “Amba boys”, as the forces of the Ambazonian separatists are known, issued more threats. It would have been the first trip he has made to the anglophone regions since 2014, in which time he has spent at least 260 days on private trips abroad, many to Geneva.

Teachers who were bussed into a heavily securitised Buea to participate in the ruling party’s rally said they were threatened that there would be consequences if they did not attend. Meanwhile, gunfights broke out between Ambazonian and Cameroonian forces in villages near the city.

It is unclear how many of the 4000 polling stations due to open in the anglophone regions will function on Sunday, though some are determined to cast their ballots.

Supporters of President Paul Biya repairing a car on their way to a rally in Maroua

“I am going to the polls this Sunday, despite the fact that our brothers don’t want us to. They should understand that this is the only way we can get the change we want,” said Judith Mafor, a supporter of the main opposition party. “We have tried with guns and this has taken us to the graves and to the bushes.”

Others said they would not risk voting and described feeling powerless.

“We vote all the time and the outcome remains the same,” said Josephine Ngum, a tailor from Bamenda. “Why do I have to vote again? In a country where real democracy is instituted, when someone’s term of office is over, he steps down for another person to take over. This is not the case with Cameroon.”

Chimene Ngum said she didn’t even have a voter’s card. “Even if I had one, I wouldn’t vote because the results would still be the same. Paul Biya always wins,” she said.

After Robert Mugabe’s fall from power last year, Biya took up the mantle of being Africa’s oldest president, making Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, 74, and Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari, 75, seem young.

Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang, 76, currently holds the title for the longest-serving president in Africa, having ousted his uncle in a military coup in 1979. Biya, who rules his cocoa and oil-producing country essentially by decree, is second.

Culled from The Guardian

7, October 2018

Biya’s Continued Stay in Power: Drama begins as ELECAM rejects Muna’s withdrawal, Matomba denies coalition ⁰

Elections Cameroon, ELECAM, the organizing body for the October 7 presidential elections has officially rejected the stepping down of a key candidate, Akere Muna.

Muna, one of nine candidates announced a coalition with a former minister, Maurice Kamto, late Friday. But ELECAM through a press release with hours to the vote said it rejects the move.

Muna had written to the body to officially retract his candidature but ELECAM said it was impossible to admit Muna’s request because it had no basis in law, much less with just hours to the opening of polls.

Opposition coalition shrinks after ‘growth?”

Meanwhile news that the opposition coalition in Cameroon had grown to three has since been denied by Serge Espoir Matomba, leader of the PURS. Reports suggested that he had backed the Kamto-Muna alliance.

News of his decision to step down in support of former minister Maurice Kamto had been expected through the better part of Saturday but in a Facebook LIVE posted in the evening, he denied any such alliance.

Twenty-four hours prior, Akere Muna had announced that his party hand entered an alliance with Kamto with the view of presenting a united front. The current development means that even though nine candidates are on the ballot, there are seven aspirants to choose from.

Incumbent Paul Biya is facing a stiff challenge to his over three-decades in charge. The coalition has come late in the day but some political watchers say it could prove crucial.

Source: Africa News

6, October 2018

Nigeria: Opposition PDP holds critical primaries to choose Buhari opponent ⁰

Nigeria’s main opposition party will have its unity tested in the aftermath of this weekend’s primaries for the presidential flag-bearer, which is being contested by several political heavyweights in the party.

Both the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) will hold primary elections this weekend to select their nominees for presidential polls scheduled for February 2019.

While President Muhammadu Buhari is likely to be unanimously endorsed to contest a second term at the APC convention in Abuja, the opposition PDP which was in office from 1999 until 2015 has a tighter race in the southern city of Port Harcourt.

PDP’s candidates

The leading contenders in the race to be PDP presidential flag-bearer are former allies of Buhari, who fell out with his administration, and defected to the opposition.

But since then, Buhari’s party has seen a wave of defections in protest at his leadership style and a surge in PDP contenders that could give it momentum as the vote approaches.

Perennial presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, a 71-year-old former vice-president from the northeastern state of Adamawa, was the one of the first big names to throw his hat in the ring.

Then, after lawmakers crossed the floor in July, former Kano state governor Rabiu Kwankwaso emerged as a leading opposition candidate, promising he can secure the key northern state.

Sokoto state governor Aminu Tambuwal joined the PDP defectors and declared his candidacy to pry northern voters away from Buhari, who enjoys mass support across the north.

Finally, the ambitious Senate leader Bukola Saraki, a former Kwara state governor who is seen as the shepherd of the defectors, announced he would campaign for the top job.

The likely chosen candidate is expected to come from the Muslim-majotity North, following an unwritten rule in Nigeria that the presidency should alternate every two terms between a candidate from the north and south.

Unity beyond primaries?

Rising tensions and divisions have been reflected in hotly contested local party primaries, said Idayat Hassan, director of the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja.

“These primaries have been fractious,” she said. “It’s one of the most contentious in a long time.”

After the PDP officially chooses its presidential candidate, the party will select a running mate, who will likely come from the largely Christian south.

“What we’re waiting to see is if the (PDP) will be able to continue as one,” said Hassan. “Now they are putting up a united front — but will that continue?”

AFP

6, October 2018

Opposition forms coalition ahead of Cameroon vote ⁰

Two Cameroonian opposition parties agreed a coalition on Friday to jointly contest this weekend’s presidential polls, a spokesman said, in an effort to dislodge six-term President Paul Biya.

The announcement confirms rumours of an opposition manoeuver to try to defeat 85-year-old Biya at Sunday’s polls, but the new union will not include the main opposition Social Democratic Front’s hopeful Joshua Osih.

Akere Muna, leader of the People’s Development Front (FDP) agreed to “withdraw his candidacy… and to support Maurice Kamto,” leader of the Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC), Muna’s spokesman said in a statement.

Kamto’s party alleged earlier on Friday that a “massive fraud” was underway to ensure the sitting president wins a seventh term.

Maurice Kamto’s campaign chief Paul-Eric Kingue said efforts to rig Sunday’s ballot “had the blessing” of the electoral commission.

“We won’t accept any result if this kind of fraud continues,” he said at a media briefing by Kamto’s MRC in the capital Yaounde.

Cameroon’s authorities have long faced accusations of unfairly favouring Biya, one of Africa’s longest serving rulers who won 78 percent of votes in 2011’s polls which were described as “flawed” by observers and the opposition.

‘Attempting to spread chaos’

Cameroon will vote amid tight security including a ban on internal travel by road, rail and air from 1700 GMT Saturday until the conclusion of voting.

The borders of the central African nation of 25 million people will also be sealed 48 hours ahead of voting day, according to a decree seen by AFP.

Kamto’s MRC has alleged that polling cards have been forged and that voter registration has continued despite the process being officially closed.

“In 62 percent of areas, the (ruling) Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party is still adding names to the voter roll,” said Kingue.

“We’re not preparing for war, but wherever there is fraud, there will be a firm response.”

Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said in a statement that “measures have been taken… to prevent any actions that might create violence or disorder around the elections”.

He added that “political figures linked to foreign interests were preparing groups of agitators to stir-up violence in the event that the results don’t go their way”.

The minister did not specify who he was referring to.

“By attempting to spread chaos, they risk being unpleasantly surprised,” he said. The authorities would “not tolerate any disorder before, during or after the presidential vote,” he added.

Biya has been in power for 35 years and now faces seven opposition contenders following Muna’s withdrawal.

The opposition front-runners are Osih and Kamto.

(AFP)

6, October 2018

Oh Lucky Man:Biya at helm of six-time election winning machine ⁰

President Paul Biya, the 85-year-old Cameroonian leader who will seek a seventh term on Sunday, has developed an effective system to stay in power despite long overseas absences. One of Africa’s longest serving leaders, he has made Yaounde’s Etoudi presidential palace his home since 1982.

“Those who want power don’t last, it’s those who can (rule)” he told journalists in 2015, making a rare remark about his long time in charge of Cameroon.

One aspect of his time in office is the “subtle balance of forces” which Biya has created in the country, in a region where leadership changes are often accompanied by force, according to International Crisis Group’s (ICG) Hans de Marie Heungoup.

Cameroon’s system was “designed so that everyone polices themselves and maintained inter-generational and ethnic rivalries”, Heungoup said.

“No one can move an active (security force) unit without the say-so of the president,” he added, emphasising the importance of the balance between the regularly army, the rapid intervention force, and the presidential guard – the last two of which report directly to the president.

The president’s appointment of loyalists to key posts has also assured his long rule.

‘Go against Biya, you’ll be crushed’

The speaker of the National Assembly, the head of the army and the head of the state-run oil and gas company are all confidants of the president, and have each held their jobs for more than 15 years.

The system has been strengthened through “a mix of resigned acceptance and patronage among certain elite leaders who rally behind the regime,” said Fred Eboko, a researcher at the French Institute for Research and Development (IRD). Biya’s primary motivation since coming to office has been “to stay in power,” he added.

“The system is built on a single individual and this individual is identified with the job,” said Titus Edzoa, a former confidant of the president who was secretary general of Biya’s presidency between 1994 and 1996 and held ministerial posts on several occasions.

“If you try to go against Biya, you’ll be crushed,” he said.

‘In power for 35 years… that’s talent’

He should know. After resigning as a health minister in 1997 to stand in elections, he was arrested and accused of stealing millions of CFA francs. He spent 15 years behind bars.

Now a free man, he warns that by centring the system on Paul Biya’s personality “not only could the system implode, but so too could the whole of Cameroon” in the near future.

“Whether you want him or not, he’s still human and you have to think of the future,” he said. “How do you look back on the story of a people dominated by an individual?”

Osvald Baboke, the deputy director of the presidency, wrote in a book published in September that “Biya’s fate seemed pre-determined” and “an opportunity given by God”. “Being in power for 35 years and standing again, that’s talent,” added Edzoa.

His repeated long absences from Cameroon, mostly in Switzerland or in his home village in his country’s south, have been bitterly criticised.

According to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a consortium of investigative journalists, Biya spent “at least four-and-a-half years of his 35 years in power on private visits” abroad.

But for the final leg of the campaign, which concludes on Saturday, Biya did at least make a rare public appearance, visiting the far-north which has been engulfed by Boko Haram jihadist violence — his first trip there since 2012.

AFP

6, October 2018

Anglophone crisis looms over Cameroon’s presidential election ⁰

On the morning of October 7, eight of Cameroon’s 10 regions will vote in a presidential election that could end the long-running leadership of Paul Biya, who has been in office since 1982 and was prime minister in the seven years before that.

Dissidents in the remaining two regions – the South West and North West – home to Cameroon’s English-speaking minority, have threatened a showdown. “There is localised violence in the Anglophone regions … more than 1,000 men have pledged to dislodge the elections in those regions by violence,” says Hans de Marie Heungoup, senior analyst for Central Africa at the International Crisis Group.

Besides fighting by Boko Haram in the Far North and North regions and rebel incursions from the Central African Republic into the Eastern region, Cameroon is largely beset by the Anglophone crisis, a separatist uprising with roots in the pre-World War I era when it was a German colony.

“We are very much on the brink of a civil war,” said Kah Walla, who is from an Anglophone region. She is the leader of the Cameroon People’s Party (CPP), but the group declined to put forward a candidate for the coming vote.

“Separatist groups have gotten to a stage where they control some territory and have promised violence if the authorities attempt to hold elections there and government has vowed to hold elections there. So the population is caught in the middle.”

Southern Cameroons became German Kamerun in 1885, eventually transiting to joint French and British administration. Opting not to join Nigeria as it sought independence in 1961, it instead joined the French Cameroons, which had already gained independence a year earlier.

By 1972, the federal republic of Cameroon had become a unitary state; while the south kept its English laws and academic system, the rest of the country stuck to the French legal system and the baccalaureate schooling alternative.

There are now complaints of marginalisation and a dearth of infrastructure in those English-speaking provinces, despite being home to the oil that accounts for 40 percent of the country’s GDP. People looking to go from Mamfe to Akwaya in the same region, for instance, travel through a Nigerian border town before returning to Cameroon – a journey that could take as long as a day – because of the roads’ terrible condition.

The elections won’t be free and fair. The system is already rigged to give the president a structural advantage-KAH WALLA, CAMEROON PEOPLE’S PARTY LEADER

Rising tensions and subsequent protests caused by these divisions snowballed spectacularly in 2016.

At least 400 people have died so far. A further 20,000 people have fled into neighbouring Nigeria as their villages were razed. Schools have been closed and a three-month internet shutdown was enforced in those provinces, forcing a few hundred untrained secessionist fighters to group and arm themselves against a military crackdown.

A recent poll by GICAM, Inter-Patronal Grouping of Cameroon said more than 6,000 jobs have been lost to the crisis. In the Northwest region, a dusk-to-dawn curfew has been imposed. Thousands have fled both provinces, moving to stay with friends and relatives elsewhere nationwide after threats by separatists who are expected to begin taking up arms in the days leading up to the elections.

Others remain trapped in their hometowns or in informal camps for displaced people in host communities. Weeks ago, Bernard Bilai, the Southwest governor, went with a party of gendarmes to a popular motor park in Buea, capital of the region, to ask panicked people gathered there to remain.

Despite violence inflicted on them by both the military and rebel troops, many in the Anglophone areas are sympathetic to the secessionist cause, although this support is not voiced, say experts.

Early this year in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, the self-declared leader of the separatist agenda, Julius Ayuk Tabe, was arrested with nine others and has since being extradited to Cameroon for trial on charges of treason.

Who is running?

Eight presidential candidates are angling to retire Biya, who is seeking a fresh seven-year mandate in what could be his seventh term.

The frontrunners include Joshua Osih of the main opposition Social Democratic Front and Akere Muna, a veteran lawyer, former vice president of Transparency International and son of a former vice president of the Federal Republic of Cameroon running with the Front Populaire Pour Le Developpement (FPD).

Both are from the English-speaking provinces. Akere Munna is 66 years old and believes it is time for Cameroon to be run by someone from the Anglophone regions

There is also Maurice Kamto, who leads the Mouvement pour la Renaissance du Cameroun (MRC) party. He was justice minister during the 2008 constitutional amendments that revised presidential term limits and led the legal team in negotiations with Nigeria over the disputed Bakassi peninsula in the early 2000s. He has a strong following in the west of the country, where he hails from.

Most young people seem to favour Cabral Libii, an eloquent 38-year-old journalist with Univers Party and law lecturer at the University of Yaounde II. Kamto and Libii have roots in the Francophone regions.

Key Issues

In 2014, Transparency International ranked Cameroon 136 out of 175 countries in a corruption index. An estimated 48 percent of Cameroon’s population lives below the poverty line.

In March, 85-year-old Biya – who reportedly presides over the country’s affairs while living in a five-star hotel in Geneva, more than 6754km away from the presidential palace in Yaounde – held his first cabinet meeting in three years.

“The key issues include unemployment and underemployment, which is generally seen as more important and sensitive than the Anglophone crisis to some of the candidates,” says a technocrat who requested anonymity out of fear of being targeted by the authorities.

Political reforms, such as issues relating to staying a federation and changing presidential term limits, are also on the table. “It’s time for a change,” the technocrat continues. “We’ve never had this many good candidates at once.

“Osih has deep political experience from his time in parliament; Muna has international experience. Same with Kamto. “While I don’t rule out a coalition happening between the candidates post-elections … I don’t see the possibility of a coalition happening before the elections.”

The end of Biya?

It remains a tall order to dislodge the strongman of Cameroonian politics, experts and analysts say, warning that voter apathy and presidential gimmicks will be at play.

Presidential candidates have been made to pay a CFA 30million ($52,100) caution fee – to guarantee they won’t encourage their supporters to violence – and were given half that amount by the government to fund their campaigns barely two weeks before the elections.

“The elections won’t be free and fair,” says Walla, the CPP leader from the Anglophone region. “The system is already rigged to give the president a structural advantage. The minister of Territorial Administration, whose ministry supervises the elections, is a diehard Biya fan. Many of the district officers in the ministry who will count votes are helping relaunch Biya’s book on his political philosophy, so there is no line between the civil service and politics.”

Biya controls the police and military forces and has substantive influence over the electoral commission; he regularly appoints its chief. Its board members only quit their ruling party membership the day their appointments were announced.

The president also appoints all judges in the country. Members of the electorate have little faith in the biometric reader system put in place for the election and do not expect Biya to concede in the unlikely event of a loss.

Local media is also suspect, recently reporting a story about Ennovate Solutions, a supposed American election-monitoring organisation, predicting a landslide victory of 81 percent for the incumbent. The firm turned out to be a web design firm owned by a relative of Paul Nji, Biya’s minister of territorial administration.

Biya still has a strong base especially among his Beti kinsfolk, one of the major ethnic groups.

Serge Alomomou, a taxi driver in Yaounde, is one of them and blames French colonialists for the country’s problems.

“Every country has its own problems and we signed a lot of contracts with the French at independence that put us in this mess. I trust Biya and he knows the best for us, he knows us more than the people who want to try and replace him. It is those working around him that mess up his efforts.”

‘Mounting hate speech’

Over the past year, hate speech has risen. A petition against controversial TV host Ernest Obama surfaced online last October over his frequent outbursts against the Anglophone community.

In June, Prime Minister Philemon Yang blamed Cameroonian citizens in the Diaspora for inciting their compatriots to violence on social media over the Anglophone issue.

Kamto, the candidate and former justice minister, has lambasted TV host Obama’s channel, Vision 4. He pulled out of a debate on the network because, he wrote on Facebook, it “promotes division and hatred among Cameroonians, particularly against the innocent English-speaking Cameroonian population trapped between secessionist activities and security forces”.

The MRC party chief has himself been accused of stoking tribal tensions between his own Bamileke people and Biya’s Beti people, two of Cameroon’s major ethnic groups.

“There are ethnic and political tensions we can see mounting between the Bamileke and Beti ethnicities,” says Heungoup. “There is mounting hate speech and it is worrying because, in Cameroon, most of the candidates have regional bases, so what if any of them decides to reject the results?”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS

6, October 2018

Cameroon marred by violence ahead of presidential poll ⁰

Eight candidates representing a string of opposition parties are vying to oust 85-year-old incumbent President Paul Biya, who has ruled Cameroon since 1982 and is also seeking a seventh term. But unrest in most parts of the country has triggered a serious refugee crisis, forcing thousands of residents to flee to neighboring Nigeria.

On Thursday, President Paul Biya’s campaign team came under gun fire as their convoy was driving top speed through the main highway into Buea, capital of the English-speaking southwest region.

Several supporters of the ruling CPDM party were injured in the gunfire exchange between government troops and armed separatists. Biya himself was not part of the Buea campaign convoy. One of Biya’s party official Gerald Ngalla told DW that “the president was worried that his presence in Buea could lead to further bloodshed.”

Credible elections “impossible”

Prince Ekosso, head of the United Socialist Democratic Party, believes the election will be flawed. “It is impossible for credible elections to take place in the northwest and the southwest,” Ekosso said.

Ekosso’s party, which had maintained a traditional support base in the south, could not hold any rally in the restive region, due to threats by the separatists, who have vowed to stop the elections in the Anglophone areas. “As a matter of fact, the towns and cities of the northwest and the southwest have been deserted,” Ekosso said.

He added that: “It’s already late now for anything to be done for free and fair elections to take place in the two regions.”

Opposition candidates have also been avoiding the restive regions too. FDP candidate Akere Muna was travelling through the English-speaking town of Mutengene and was chased by angry protesters. Four civilians were killed.

Last week, eight CPDM supporters who were planning a campaign rally in Bamenda were kidnapped from a hotel and have not been seen since then.

“They want to provide the solution through their political lenses,” said civil society leader, Willibroad Ze Ngwa urging the ruling CPDM party to call for peace. He said the party should stop giving the impression that it can solve the crisis through war.

“It is only their political party that should be able to provide the solution to the problem and we say no. We are saying that Cameroonians from all works of life should get to the field and talk to the people in a tone of appeasement, keeping their political jackets by the side.”

However, Enow Abrams Egbe, chairman of the electoral commission Elecam, believes otherwise. “I am just coming from the northwest and the southwest, the situation is perturbed but serene in a way that all the material is on the ground,” he told DW.

“The security is working hard, leaving no stone unturned to make sure that voters go to the poll free and fair. I am only assuring them that there will be no fright,” Egbe said.

6.6 million voters will be expected to cast their ballots at 25,000 polling stations all over Cameroon on October 7 to vote their new president. The divided opposition has failed to present a single candidate.

Opposition parties defy separatists

Presidential candidates have been encouraging voters to cast their ballots. Prophet Frank Ndifor Afanui, a candidate for the opposition Cameroon National Citizenship Movement, is the only one to travel to the restive southwest region so far, with a visit to Mutengene.

In Cameroon’s capital Yaounde, opposition Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) candidate Maurice Kamto suggests the separatists should allow people to vote as the only way to change the system they have been fighting.

“They will not win the war, so why continue fighting that war? Is it a solution for a country in crisis just to split into two parts just because we maybe have a government which is not listening to them? Go and vote because it is the only solution. We do not have to sacrifice our people,” Kamto said.

Social Democratic Front (SDF) candidate Joshua Osih said he sees a solution to the conflict.

“The problem is not the secession. The problem is the marginalization and injustices that lead to that secession. The secession will not necessarily solve that problem,” said Osih.

Displaced voters

Elecam has vowed that those who have been “displaced will be able to vote,” according to the organizing body’s regional director Amadou Ali. “They’re not just displaced people – they are voters. The fact that they’ve been displaced will not have any impact on the election.” He added that people without their documents will be able to register to vote in the towns where they have sought refuge.

“It’s not true, I wasn’t able to get a voting card,” retorted Yagana, as she rested on a mat. “I’ve requested it but a local official asked me for 40,000 CFA francs ($70, €60).”

But Cameroonian analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG), Hans de Marie Heungoup, believes only “one-third of those displaced in the far north are registered on the voters’ roll.” The region is Cameroon’s most populous and it’s poorest and has previously voted overwhelmingly for President Paul Biya.

Army policing polls

The army has been deployed to the two restive regions to battle separatist fighters since the end of 2017. According to the ICG, the secessionists control “a significant proportion of rural areas and main roads” in the regions. Skirmishes are violent and occur frequently, displacing thousands of local residents.

Around 246,000 people have been displaced in the southwest, according to the UN, while no estimate exists for the northwest region which is largely inaccessible to aid groups and journalists. Some 25,000 others are sheltering in neighboring Nigeria, according to the UN. In the face of continuing clashes, a surge of troops is planned, according to a senior official.

Elecam has also said that some polling stations will be “relocated” in the Anglophone region which has traditionally been a reliable well of votes for the main opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) whose candidate is Joshua Osih. He has described the planned “relocations” in interviews as “an illegal measure” that could damage his chances.

Source: Deutschwelle

5, October 2018

Race For Etoudi: Maurice Kamto and Akere Muna form coalition ⁰

With less than 48 hours to Sunday’s presidential election in Cameroon, two opposition candidates have formed a coalition, according to the spokesperson of Akere Muna, one of the candidates.

“Akere Muna agrees to withdraw his candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic (…) and to support Maurice Kamto in the said elections,” said a statement signed by Akere Muna’s spokesman, Paul Mahel.

Nine candidates will run for the presidency of Cameroon on Sunday, including incumbent president Paul Biya, who has been in office since 1982.

Source: Africa News