2011 Presidential Election: To Register Or Not To Register

By Canute Tangwa

Apparently, when memory takes flight, we loose a huge chunk of our ‘private literature’. There was a time when registering for elections and obtaining a voter’s card was a must. In those times, you could spend some nasty time in a police/gendarmerie cell or feel the nuisance capacity of the security apparatus if you did not possess a voter’s card.

That was the time when the inimitable George Tanni or some other press icon explained over Radio Cameroon on the eve to a one-party election that registering, possessing a voter’s card and voting are civic duties. Indeed, he or some other reporter was at pains drawing a fine line between civic duty and political duty. Seemingly, to register for elections is both a civic and political duty if we accept that “civic responsibility (is) the active participation in the public life of a community in an informed, committed, and constructive manner with a focus on the common good”.

Today, the argument has cropped up but in a completely different context: multi-party democracy. The current apathy of Cameroonians for things political underlies the hot air about registering or not for elections. Why register when your votes won’t count? Why register when the results are a foregone conclusion? Why register when one party is player and referee? Why register when the opposition looks like a pale copy of the ruling party? When answers are found to these series of whys, then Cameroonians will come out of their apparent political lethargy or inertia.

However, as per the question whether registering for elections is a civic or political duty, it came to the fore with the recent posturing of the SDF party. A posture that is both tactical and strategic going by the effervescence that it has generated in the opposite camp and the public but indicative of the tight situation the party finds itself in and if not handled deftly might be to its disadvantage.

The SDF stance runs like this: there will be no elections in Cameroon in 2011 with the present composition of ELECAM! Does the SDF have the muscle and influence to change government action or policy? In politics, actors always raise the stakes to make believe with the knowledge that implosion always occurs when overconfidence sets in. Then, the SDF turns around and says it will not boycott the 2011 presidential elections! Like in a game of chess, the SDF plays tough (first condition) and then throws a bait.

It further says it will not send representatives to the electoral commissions set up by ELECAM! By sending representatives, it gives credibility to the latter. So, let’s tarry and see whether the government removes a chip. But time is an important factor in any political game. The SDF further tells Cameroonians that they have a right to register for elections because they will be fulfilling a civic obligation and not a political one. In clear terms, the SDF as a political formation does not urge Cameroonians to register for the 2011 elections but Cameroonians have a right to do so because it is a civic duty! 

As an SDF strategist and frontline militant, Kah Wala wades in smoothly, under the umbrella of her NGO, Cameroon Ô’BOSSO, telling Cameroonians to register massively because it is in their best interest. Thus, she does not ruffle feathers within her party though newspaper headlines talk of her defiance of the chairman and her possible candidature as well as possible slamming of sanctions on pro-registration militants. If the latter comes to pass, then the SDF would have bungled an opportunity to put pressure on government and at the same time appeal for popular and international support. 

Without a doubt, the Government and its appendage, the CPDM party is concerned about Cameroonians registering for elections. In order to give credibility to the 2011 election and hush the concerns of the International Crisis Group, the US State Department and other think tanks like the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the French NGO, Le Comité Catholique Contre la Faim et pour le Développement (CCFD), the government and its acolyte, the CPDM, views the SDF as an important chip in its grand political designs. However, as an alternative, the SDF cannot get along like a sheep for slaughter. It has to extract concessions!!!      

 

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