By Yerima Kini Nsom
The ongoing calls for President Paul Biya, a nonagenarian, to go ahead and succeed himself at Etoudi, is preposterous, especially for pro-democracy activists who preach the gospel of power change.
From the grounds of politicking jurisprudence and manoeuvers of the regime, it is likely that the statusquo will triumph once more over radical aspirations.
Though shrouded in all legal banality, Biya’s bid to succeed himself at Etoudi is pregnant with extraordinary connotations. It is the harbinger that the statusquo will be here for a long time. That way, it will deprive Cameroonians from having a former President who could hang around for a while before going home to his maker. This explains why citizens of other countries that “savour” sit-tight “democracy” are usually pleasantly surprised to see former Presidents of Nigeria mixing and mingling freely in the society.
By God’s grace, President Biya will be will be 99 years old when the mandate that he is gunning to grab in October, ends in in 2032. Following the launching of campaigns for Biya’s candidacy within the ranks of the CPDM, the treacherous orchestrations of the political elite are at work again. They are churning out tons and tons of sophistic mumbo jumbo as to why the man who joined government in 1962 needs another mandate on the state saddle. But such claims constitute a hocus pocus that can only entertain the soapbox morons.
All those who are horse-whipping the incumbent Biya to race for another term, have vowed that they would give him a landslide victory no matter the situation. That is why there are many questions as to whether the establishment will divorce with its past records and give Cameroonians, for once, a free, fair and transparent election in October.
Will the crude fanaticism of those who call the shots still make sure that elections in Cameroon remain Machiavellian? For one thing, Cameroonians are still bleeding with the past records of rigged elections that have brazenly plundered the destiny of this beautifully endowed nation. If such a logic were to be sustained, the outcome of the October polls will just be another masquerade, especially when the end does not only justify the means, but also the meanness of the electoral exercise. It will be an unpardonable myopia for any stakeholder to bank on the possibility of anything near a cataclysmic change in our country’s electoral morality. If that were to be the case, the regime would not have been reticent about the call for electoral reforms. The call has been for reforms that could beam a searchlight on the ambiguous spots of our electoral law that entertain opaqueness. ELECAM’s refusal to publish the national electoral lists as provided for by the electoral law, has been interpreted as the hurling of the rigging salvo.
One of Cameroon’s renowned political scientists, Dr. Aristide Mono, says the refusal to publish the list is part of the rigging plan by ELECAM.
Critical observers hold it rightly (wrongly?) that since the rebirth of multiparty politics in 1990, the Biya regime has fine-tuned election-rigging to the level of an art such that it has become the life wire of the New Deal. Otherwise why have the barons of the regime been so aggressive each time the need to reform the electoral code is mentioned? Why has the regime ignored calls from political parties, the civil society and international organisations, including the UN, for a complete overhaul of the electoral system?
Why does government dread the institution of a single ballot paper, a two-round presidential election and a reduction of the voting age as if all these were deadly issues? But for divine intervention, October polls will be anything but an equitable, fair, and balanced election. Its main menu will still be, in figurative sense, an insipid computer cliché-garbage-out, garbage-in. Once more, the aspirations of the people will be rigged in an election ritual that has become a banal selection and a mere formality.
Is any pro-regime don sophistically tenacious enough to gainsay our reading of the October game? If yes, let him tell us if the state and the ruling CPDM will no longer share the same wallet when it comes to gabbling with campaign money. Let him tell us if civil servants who do not militate in any party, will no longer be blackmailed to campaign for the CPDM candidate. Let him tell us if the ruling party will no longer use state paraphernalia, including cars and government offices for its campaigns. Let him assure us that state appointments and promotions will no longer be hinged on how many votes one grabbed for the CPDM in his area of origin. Will ELECAM and the Constitutional Council that are made up of predominantly cohorts of the regime, suddenly become independent outfits overnight so as to be those ideal and impartially masterful umpires?
The skies are very bright for the CPDM candidate. Not only because of the rigging crudity of the establishment but also because the credible opposition has chosen to fight a common enemy in dispersed ranks. Individualism, rivalry and ego-massaging are the character flaws of an opposition in perennial wound-licking and trading of scars. After a feeble attempt with the Union for Change in the 1992 presidential election, it remains an enigma as to why the SDF, the CDU, the NUDP, the MRC, the UPC, the PCRN among other opposition parties cannot unite behind one candidate.
Despite what observers describe as very slim chances for the opposition, the logic is that Cameroonians of all shades of opinion should be prepared to vote and defend their votes in October. For change is the only thing that is permanent in the human society. Sometimes, it wades in when it is least expected.