Revisiting & Breaking Cameroon’s Flawed Electoral Past: The Challenge for Mr. Tanimou

By Frankline C. Kimbeng*

Elections do serve many useful purposes for democratic transition and consolidation.  As Handelmon (2003) has pointed out, elections are designed to give the mass of the people opportunities to have a say in who (leaders) governs them and how (policies) they are governed.   As a means of giving accountability to citizens, elections are supposed to be a constant reminder to public office holders of the limited nature of modern government. 

 

The aftermath of flawed elections

These attributes of elections have eluded Cameroon since the re-introduction of Multi-Party “Democracy” in the 1990s because of electoral malpractices.  Electoral malpractices include any unapproved and unethical behaviours that usually manifest before, during, and after elections such as, actions, behaviours and attitudes that violate the laid-down electoral rules and regulations. 

In the context of Cameroon, electoral malpractices were usually committed by the politicians with the connivance of the Ministry of Territorial and Decentralization Administration (MINATD), the defunct National electoral Observatory (ONEL), and the forces of law and order.  These collaborators often supported manipulation of election results for selfish interests.  There is anecdotal evidence that in 2007, the manipulation reached such a feverish stage that it became commonplace and was done with impunity.  Although it was an all-party affair, the ruling Rassemblement démocratique du Peuple Camerounais, (RDPC) deployed the state apparatus, including the Police, Army, Gendarmarie, and the Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) to ensure the victory of its preferred candidates.

How Past Elections were rigged in Cameroon

The rigging techniques that have undermined previous elections in Cameroon can be grouped in three:  those that precede election day, those that occur during the actual voting/casting of ballots, and post-election problems associated with counting of votes, announcement of results, declaration of the winners, and election petitions. These problems were visible, in various magnitudes and dimensions and in virtually all national elections since the re-introduction of multi party “democracy” in Cameroon.    As a representative of the Presidency of Cameroon at the National Vote Counting Commission of the July 2007 elections in Cameroon, Mr. Mohaman Sani Tanimou  should be versed with most of the vote rigging techniques employed by MINATD and the other stake holders. 

MINATD and its partners have often relied on the following before-election day techniques: massive disenfranchisement of voters suspected of having sympathies with the opposition; fraudulent and deliberate displacement of voters cards at polling stations; registration of fictitious/ghost names  on voter registers;  illegal compilation of separate voter lists; deliberate refusal to register certain demographic categories of voters; illegal printing of voter cards; illegal distribution and possession of ballots boxes; stuffing of ballots boxes with ballots papers; deliberate refusal to supply electoral materials to certain areas; harassment of candidates and voters;  change of lists of electoral officials; and  failure by MINATD to display the voter register as stipulated in the Electoral Act; multiple-registration of voters;  gerrymandering of electoral constituencies to minimize the voting power of opposition  voters; the creation of fake polling centres; and refusing to accept/register solid opposition candidates.

On election day, the following techniques were employed: election day campaigning; corruption of ONEL agents with food, beer and money, late/non-supply of election materials to opposition strongholds; voting by unregistered criminals; delay in opening polling centres located in opposition strongholds; voting by under-aged children; voting at traditional chiefs/fons palaces; “political intimidation…coercion…arrest and imprisonment of opposition leaders; box switching and stuffing of ballot boxes; multiple voting; inducement of voters with food, drinks and money; and threatening of some voters with the use of violence.

Some documented post election rigging in Cameroon includes refusal to count ballots from opposition strongholds; changing of results between voting centres and Divisional Officer’s Offices; unauthorized announcement of election results by CRTV; announcement of results in places where no elections were held; falsification of election results; and manipulation of the election petition process.

I sympathize with Cameroonians because the rigging of the 2011 elections started with the knee-capping of the formal independence of ELECAM.  Formal independence is based on the law creating ELECAM and deals with inter alia, with the establishment of ELECAM, the mode of appointment of members and their terms and condition of services.  

Also, there is evidence that, within ELECAM leadership  there exists  and throughout Cameroon persons who are irrevocably and unrepentantly sworn to electoral malpractices. This is a monstrous challenge to Mr. Mohaman Sani Tanimou  and any well-meaning Cameroonians who earnestly desire a breath of fresh electoral air.

It is perhaps the greatest challenge amongst all the hurdles to credible elections in the country. It is an open secret that on the board of ELECAM of, seven (7) of its twelve (12) members are militants of the ruling RDPC party, who have favoured the rigging of past elections.  These members will do everything to frustrate Mr. Mohaman Sani Tanimou and his team as they go about to register and count the vote of the 9 Million Cameroonians come 2011.  

However, Mr. Mohaman Sani Tanimou must protect and defend the small silver of goodwill left with ELECAM.  This goodwill is ELECAM’s practical independence or operational Independence.  This challenge can only be met if we assume that Mr. Tanimou Sani Tanimou is not a chameleon. 

*Founders’ Forum Fellow - American Society For Public Administration
Louisiana, USA

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