CPDM Wins Senatorial Elections In Advance

By Kini Nsom

As speculations heighten to the effect that government could organise senatorial elections in the coming months, political analysts in Yaounde say the ruling CPDM party has already secured have a sweeping victory.

An analysis of the Electoral College as provided by an amendment of law No 2006/005 of July 14, 2006 points to the fact that the CPDM will win over 95 percent of the 100 seats in the Senate. Article 11(i) hitherto reads that "Senators shall be elected in every region by an electoral college composed of regional and municipal counsellors.

But during the last parliamentary session, the law was amended to read as follows: "that the electoral college for Senators will be exclusively municipal counsellors in case senatorial elections are organised before regional council elections.

Coming after the CPDM won a majority of the councils in the wake of a hue and cry against electoral fraud, the amendment was adopted at the same time that Parliament endorsed another amendment postponing the putting in place of Elections Cameroon, ELECAM to six months.

The leading opposition party in parliament, the Social Democratic Front, SDF, raised an alarm against such amendments. The SDF parliamentary group leader, Hon. Joseph Banadzem qualified the amendments as a rigging arrangement for the CPDM. Observers hold that the amendment of the law creating ELECAM means that the National Elections Observatory, NEO, considered to be a pliant tool in the hands of the all powerful Ministry of Territorial Administration, could still be the organ to manage Senatorial elections.

During the NEO General Assembly, its Chairman, François-Xavier Mboyoum, said NEO members will go down to the field to renew the electoral registers. This points to the fact that they may be preparing for an election.

For one thing, the CPDM won over 95 percent of the 360 councils in the country according to the results of the July 22, 2007 municipal elections. This means that the Electoral College that is made up of 10 636 councillors will be overwhelmingly CPDM. According to the law spelling out conditions for the organisation of municipal elections each region (province) will be an electoral constituency.

Each region will elect seven Senators while the President of the Republic will appoint three others to make up for the 10 required.The CPDM overwhelmingly won the municipal elections in almost all the provinces. In the South, East and Adamawa, the party controls all the councils. In the Centre Province, it has an electoral college of 1902 counsellors and calls the shots over 68 councils out of a total of 70.

The opposition Union Des Populations du Cameroun, UPC, that used to pose as a threat to the CPDM in the Centre Province was cut to size during the municipal elections. The Augustin Frederic Kodock's party only has 44 counsellors in the Nyong and Kelle Division. The CPDM equally swept almost all the councils in other provinces of the country.

As far as Senatorial elections are concerned, the CPDM can only have a small threat from the SDF in the Northwest Province. Ni John Fru Ndi's party won 18 councils while the CPDM grabbed 16. Yet, it is just a slim margin of two councils.

Although the Supreme Court Cancelled elections in six council areas, it poses no threat to the ruling party even if they were to be all won by the opposition during the reruns.
From the look of things, the CPDM could grab 95 Senators of the 100 expected in the Upper House of Parliament.

For one thing, the law gives the President of the Republic who is also the Chairman of the CPDM to appoint 30 percent of a total of the 100 Senators. This means that only 70 Senators will be elected.

Beneath this scenario, is said to be scheming within the ruling party as people fight to position themselves for the election. It is speculated that the party will organise its congress next November to define a clear cut policy on the Senatorial elections. But as of now, no official announcement has been made to that effect.

Comments

[Essono]

The best enabling environment for a workable bicameral Legislature is a Federal,Confederal system or a political entity with established semi-autonomous and autonomous regions.Bc a Senate is a compromise institution between the various national entities and the different arms of gov't.And Cameroon doesn't offer such an enabling environment.

In a deeply centralised system,where Municipalities and Regions(yet to be created) aren't empowered to direct their own affairs,where directives on the day to day functioning of Councils are dictated from the central administration in Y'dé,it's crystal clear that Senatorial politics will be heavily influenced by this.Not to talk of the snail pace at which decentralisation is being carried out and the regime's insistence on maintaining the unpopular Gov't Delegates is indicative that Biya's administration intends to keep a heavy grip on the 'arteries' of the nation for a very long time.

Creating a Senate without empowering local gov'ts and putting in lace autonomous regions,is simply putting the cart before the horse.And one can imagine the direction of such a cart on a down hill slope...