By Joe Dinga Pefok
The Littoral SDF Provincial Chairman, Jean Michel Nintcheu, has said his party will challenge the controversial victory of the CPDM Council list headed by Françoise Foning at the July 22 twin elections in Douala V.
Score Board
This, Nintcheu said, they would do at the Administrative Bench of the Supreme Court in Yaounde.
In a telephone interview granted The Post in Douala on July 25, Nintcheu who headed the SDF Parliamentary list for Wouri East constituency (Douala III and V Subdivisions), insisted that SDF won the council elections in Douala V.
He said the party's position is based on the statistics of the authentic "process verbaux", PVs, (detailed results sheets) from all the polling stations in Douala V.
Nintcheu swore that the statistics gives victory to the SDF, which scored an absolute majority at the polls.The PVs in the possession of the SDF are copies that the party's polling agents brought back from the different polling stations where they were officially assigned.
Asked how the President of the Council Commission for the elections in Douala V came about the results which gave victory to the CPDM 62 percent, Nintcheu said the President based his conclusion on the PVs which were submitted to the Commission by the DO of Douala V, Gabriel Ngonou.
But the Littoral SDF boss claimed that 41 PVs, which were sent by the DO, were discovered by his party as well as the UPC which also participated in the elections, to have been heavily falsified to favour the CPDM list.
Nintcheu stated that while it was no secret that participation at the elections was so low in Douala with no polling station in Douala V registering up to 150 people, the DO of Douala V had gone ahead after the elections to vote for many of those in the municipality, who in reality did not vote.
He said the falsified PVs show those polling stations having each registered close to a 100 percent participation.Nintcheu has also cried out that the President of the Council Commission in Douala V rejected calls that he should contact NEO for the Observatory's copies of the PVs.
This is contrary to the law regulating elections in the country. He said the Commission President instead went ahead to declare the results based on the PVs which the DO sent.
Nintcheu said the SDF representative in the Commission did not validate the falsified PVs, and thus did not sign the results declared by the President of the Commission. The SDF, he asserted, does not recognise the results.
Protest And Violence
Meanwhile, on July 23, hundreds of opposition militants, who were mostly said to be militants of the SDF, staged a peaceful protest in front of the Wouri Divisional Service of Basic Education at Bonamoussadi in Douala V.
The building was on that day hosting a meeting of the Council Commission for the elections.The militants, who carried placards strongly condemning electoral fraud and calling for democracy to be given a chance, accused the DO of Douala V of perpetrating electoral fraud.
The demonstration initially went on peacefully as the gendarmes who had been deployed to protect the Commission, simply told the protesters to keep away from the building.
This, they respected. But things later turned sour when truck loads of anti-riot policemen from the 12th Police District, suddenly stormed the scene and launched a fierce attack against the peaceful protesters.
The police, who fell on the peaceful demonstrators like bees, used their truncheons indiscriminately. They as well fired tear gas at the protesters, who fought back with stones.
At the end of the confrontation, over 20 persons sustained injuries. The police, who made a number of arrests, also vandalised the motorcycles (bendskins) of some of the protesters.
Roland Tsapi, a journalist with Le Messager, received a snake beating.
Foning, DO React
In his reaction about the alleged electoral fraud, the DO of the Douala V, Ngonou, admitted to reporters on July 24 that the opposition parties are contesting the PVs of 41 polling stations.
But he denied having falsified any PV. He said he simply received the PVs as the regulation requires from the presidents of the polling stations and forwarded them to the Commission, without tampering with any of them in any way.
As for the Wouri V CPDM Section President, Françoise Foning, she described the opposition parties that took part in the elections, especially the SDF, as "bad losers" in an election she claimed was free and fair.
Foning lashed out at the opposition for thinking that "they can win an election by terror." She also accused the opposition of having manipulated some people to go out and demonstrate.
Foning warned the SDF in particular, and the opposition as a whole in Douala V municipality, that she too, is quite capable of carrying out the game of manipulation.
She was, however, quick to add that she is not interested in such a thing. Hear her: "I have won, and will stay quiet."
It is worth recalling that at the 2004 Presidential election, there was a similar situation of fraud in Douala V, allegedly perpetrated by the then DO and Foning.
The SDF took the matter to the National Vote Counting Commission in Yaounde where the Commission asked for NEO's own copies of the PVs.
Fortunately, the then NEO member for the Littoral Province, Barrister Mrs. Rêgine Dooh-Collins, had reportedly resisted all the pressures from Foning and other CPDM bigwigs in Douala, that she falsify the PVs to tie with that of the DO of Douala V and the CPDM.
What NEO presented to the Commission in Yaounde exposed the fraud that was carried out in Douala V, which showed that the DO had fraudulently added some 10,000 votes to CPDM.
Meanwhile, the National President of Mouvement Progessistes, Jean Jacques Ekindi, in a press conference on Wednesday, July 25, announced that his party has filed a petition to the Administrative Bench of the Supreme Court against electoral fraud in the municipal elections in Douala I.
can fonning even differentiate between a public and a private bill, ohh God help Cameroon, morrons are being sent to the parliament,
Posted by: kisah | Friday, 27 July 2007 at 04:11 AM