By Dr. Peter Wuteh Vakunta
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring the real facts.”--- Abraham Lincoln
Never before in our history have Cameroonians been as frustrated about their nation and its political system as they are today. The people are stricken with doubt, subjected to existential sclerosis, and bewildered by what has been christened by some pundits as the GOVERNMENTAL MESS[i] . Pessimism is becoming ingrained in the Cameroonian psyche, and with good cause. Traditionally, Cameroonians look for the genesis of problems. If a house is poorly constructed we blame the builder. When a simple medical operation fails, we hold the surgeon accountable. Sadly, today Cameroonians are at the crossroads, knowing not where to turn for help.
Under Mr. Paul Biya’s 29-year tenure at the presidency of the Republic, the Cameroonian people have become unwilling victims of governmental dysfunction, characterized by impunity, ineptitude, dereliction of duty, corruption, human rights abuses, brutal ethnic wrangling, hardcore occultism, extravagance, and hollow promises. Not only have Mr. Biya and his inane lackeys defaulted in the fulfillment of their promises, but they have violated the most important ethic of any social contract: PRIMUM NON NOCERE—First Do No Harm. That is why I have resorted to the epithet ‘embargoed’ in this essay to label a government that from inception has worked against the SUMMUM BONUM— The Common Good. On account of its myriad iniquities, the Biya regime has become the people’s albatross, worse still this nation’s anathema.
In this essay, I contend that Mr. Biya and his CPDM ruling party have failed miserably in meeting the needs of the working class who pay taxes, farmers who toil day and night to feed the nation, university graduates who cannot find work, patients who cannot find medical care in our skeletal hospitals, and the rank and file who labor under rain and shine to make ends meet. I do so by adumbrating what I have branded the “deadly sins” of the Biya regime. The Cameroonian people deserve to know how their country is being governed. It is a right not a privilege. Our leaders should be accountable to us; not to themselves.Cameroonians thirst for transparency.
Requiem for Transparency
From 1982, the year of Paul Biya’s ascendancy to the supreme magistracy in Cameroon to date, he has used his ruling party, Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) to erode the basic structure of political life in the country. Fair game and transparency mean nothing to Biya and his morally bankrupt cronies. CPDM politicians work obsessively at serving themselves, becoming experts at fanciful rhetoric, and conquering the ballot box by having recourse to electoral gerrymandering. Post Watch observes: “Election fraud in Cameroon is enhanced, advanced, state of the art and even refined with every election.”[ii]
It is tempting to take at face value the spurious postulations of some sycophantic Cameroonian pseudo- intellectuals in the Diaspora who claim that the CPDM is poised to win the upcoming presidential election in Cameroon because it has strategists who generate ideas, articulate policies, mobilize citizens to vote during elections, and ipso facto, presents Cameroon at this juncture with the best possibilities for developing a truly democratic political culture. This is balderdash! The fact of the matter is that the CPDM modus operandi is antithetical to democratic tenets. It is an open secret that the ruling in Cameroon ‘wins’ elections because it has minted a monstrous rigging machine designed to divest the electorate of votes. Here are a few examples of CPDM’s election rigging contraptions discussed by Postwatch (op.cit).
1. Hidden Population Figures: falsified voter registry and disenfranchisement are powerful tools employed with impunity by Mr. Paul Biya and his lieutenants for the purpose of rigging elections. And they have done so repeatedly over the years. Postwatch notes that “almost 2/3 of potential voters in Cameroon have been disenfranchised for one reason or another”(op.cit).Voter apathy created by many years of electoral fraud and disenfranchisement explain why this year’s presidential poll is going to be yet another election without an electorate, yet another stolen victory! Presidential election in Cameroon is a gigantic fraud that commences long before polls are even opened, and continues unabated during the electoral process, and ends on a false note.
My word of caution to international election observers who will converge in Cameroon this October to monitor the Presidential Election process is that electoral rigging takes place before, during and after ballots are cast. To borrow words from Postwatch, “In Cameroon the administration… manufactures election results two years before the vote. The figures are then preserved in the drawers ready to come out like magic declaring the incumbent winner…!”(op.cit.)
2. Spin and Lies in the State Media
Every Cameroonian knows that the State media routinely feeds the populace with salacious news about the ruling party even if the news items are all spins. Incidentally, news about opposition parties does not get much attention. Whenever it does it is vilifying news. Government-owned media is annoyingly deceptive. As Norman Solomon observes,” the deceptions of the media… are not simply those that have to do with selectivity of sources or an obvious imbalance in the information offered, but also those more clever forms of media distortion that derive from subtle shadings , and the calculated instruments of denigration”(1).[iii] Prior and during elections, the CPDM constantly hijacks the State media to diffuse pro-regime messages in flagrant disregard of the law stipulating equal access to media time for political parties in Cameroon. Postwatch points out that the CPDM party has gotten into the habit of bribing the private media as well: “Under the ‘subvention scheme’ some private newspapers and radio stations are coerced to campaign for the ruling party. Bribe money given to private radio stations can go up to 5.000.000. FCFA …”[iv] Let me say in passing that it is not only the media that is misappropriated by the ruling CPDM party during elections. Government property such as vehicles, personnel and money are used by the party for campaign purposes.
The foregoing leads us to draw the conclusion that the CPDM party preys on journalistic fraud to foster its diabolical ends. In doing so, they violate the basic principle of journalism which was unambiguously embodied in the code of journalistic ethics adopted in 1923 by the American Society of Newspaper Editors stating that “ Sound practice makes clear distinction between news reports and expressions of opinion. News reports should be free from opinion or bias of any kind” (27).[v] The news media is supposed to foster healthy debate, raise conflicting points of view and present all sides of a story.
3. Electoral Gerrymandering
Mr. Biya’s regime creates Fake voter registers. After every election, the president orders his henchmen and partners in crime to tinker with voter registries by deleting obvious opposition names. Furthermore, the regime gives its blessing to the creation of clandestine voter registration. What this means is that CPDM cronies (fons, chiefs, lamidos, divisional officers, district officers, etc) compile their own registers in clandestine locations which are later validated as official voter registers. Blood thirsty tyrants like Chief Doh Gah Gwanyin of Balikumbat in Ngoketunjia Division is notorious for running at least four polling stations in his palace during every presidential election in Cameroon. He is not alone in committing this felony. Many other traditional leaders aid and abet the CPDM in electoral fraud in various ways. The CPDM is notorious for flouting the law that stipulates respect for voter registration deadlines.
Mr. Biya has no respect for legality at all, much less for voter registration cut-off dates. Consequently, regime supporters are registered on the day of election, regardless of the fact that the law clearly states that voter registration should run from January to June. Ghost voter registration is the stock-in-trade of the Biya regime. More often than not, the names of non-existent or even dead people are inserted into voter registers and corresponding ballot papers inserted into the ballot boxes. Often, in flagrant violation of the law, only one half of the electoral list per polling station is published when such lists are published at all. Sometimes, voters who registered to vote in one polling station may have their names deliberately transferred to a distant polling station. For example, voters in Bonaberi in Douala could have their names transferred to Logpom, some 15 kilometers away. Given that commercial transportation is generally grounded on Election Day, these displaced voters end up not being able to vote. Many times, crowds of anti-regime voters are sent to the wrong polling stations in an attempt to prevent them from voting. Then, the administration tallies the ballots and phony results, and life goes on as usual in Cameroon!
4. Draconian Voter Registration Process
The CPDM-led regime has made the voter registration process herculean. In bona fide democratic countries, the driver’s license, social security card, certificate of birth, etc are valid documents accepted for voter registration purposes. In Cameroon, the National Identification Card is the only valid document accepted for this purpose. Biya’s cronies in positions of authority have made it almost impossible for known opposition voters to obtain ID cards. To obtain an ID card in Cameroon, the citizen has to provide a certificate of nationality, a 500 FCFA fiscal stamp (this figure might have changed), passport-sized photos, and an unspecified amount in bribery to the police superintendent whose job is to sign the card. This makes it impossible for average Cameroonians who live below the poverty line to obtain a National Identification Card. On the contrary, reports abound testifying to the fact that CPDM cronies do hand out money stolen from state coffers to CPDM sympathizers to facilitate the process of obtaining National Identification Cards for them.
5. Stuffing Ballot Boxes
Things may change this year with talk about the availability of so-called transparent ballot boxes, but in the past it has been common practice for the Biya regime to stuff ballot boxes prior to Election Day. The CPDM is capable of manufacturing its own ballot boxes this year just to make sure that its candidate Mr. Biya is re-elected. With Mr. Biya and his Ali Baba gang of scoundrels nothing is impossible. Don’t we say “L’impossible n’est pas camerounais?”[vi] Post watch observes that “in 1997 after registering some 8000 ghost voters, Doh Gwanyin of Balikumbat spent all night with the then DO of Balikumbat stuffing 8000 ballot papers into fake ballot boxes for ghost polling stations”(op.cit.)
6. Coercive Tactics
The CPDM regime is noted for resorting to scare tactics to swipe votes. In the palaces of fons, chiefs, and lamidos, voters are coerced into voting for the ruling party. Fons and chiefs intimidate their subjects (villagers), nchindas[vii] and harem of queens to vote for the CPDM willy-nilly. Often, pro-CPDM officials register foreigners to vote for the regime in power. There are documents out there that testify to the fact that CPDM officials have registered Chadians, Gabonese, and Equatorial Guineans in the Far North and South regions to vote for the ruling party.
Quite often, voters are ferried from polling station to polling station to vote for the CPDM. To mask this act of fraudulence, the regime either refuses to provide indelible ink or produces chemicals that help to take off the indelible ink after voters have cast their votes. This way, pro-CPDM voters can vote as many times as they possibly can. It is important to point out at this juncture that in Cameroon, traditional rulers are auxiliaries of the government and, therefore, earn a salary from the administration. Thus, voting in favor of the ruling CPDM party boils down to a question of bread and butter as far as these misinformed, partially-educated traditional leaders are concerned.
7. Post-Electoral Rigging.
More often than not, even before the officially instituted counting committee sits down to validate the tallies, Divisional Officers and Senior Divisional Officers, all Biya’s appointees, produce bogus score sheets doctored to favor the CPDM party which are tabled to the central counting units. Such results are hastily proclaimed. Notable gimmicks played by these officials include fiddling with numbers: 39% for CPDM becomes 93%; 75% for an opposition party becomes 57% and so on. Sometimes, these corrupt administrators annul valid votes without justification. The objective is always to ensure that the CPDM emerges as the winner.
8. Creation of a Bogus Election Watchdog
In a bid to divert national and international attention from the electoral fraud taking place in Cameroon, Mr. Biya has created a paper-tiger called Elections Cameroon aka ELECAM. Sub-paragraph 11 of article 13 of the December 29, 2006 law creating ELECAM, makes it clear that “the post of chairperson, the vice chair and members of the electoral council are incompatible with functions or quality…of a member belonging to a political party or a group supporting a political party, a candidate or list of candidates.” The statute further states that the appointment of members into the electoral council of ELECAM will be chosen from amongst Cameroonian personalities known for their competence, moral integrity, intellectual honesty, and sense of patriotism.
Interestingly, ELECAM has turned out to be a gigantic sham. Given its constitution, it is not impartial enough to conduct free and fair elections in Cameroon. Truth be told, ELECAM is a masked organ of the CPDM, a tool in the hands of Mr. Paul Biya and his party lieutenants. A major criticism of the ELECAM is that in violation of the law governing the body, Biya has appointed militants of his CPDM party; a party ridden with stories of corruption, influence peddling and misappropriation of public funds into the board. Eleven (11) of its twelve (12) board members are members of the Central Committee and Political Bureau of the ruling CPDM party. This thinly veiled attempt to control ELECAM is seen by many sound-minded Cameroonians and international election monitors as the death knell of free and fair elections in Cameroon. ELECAM is both player and referee at the same time. Reacting to the appointment of members of ELECAM, opposition Member of Parliament, Hon. Jean Jacques Ekindi, makes the following comment to the press: “Today, it is clear that the consultation which the Prime Minister carried out was in fact useless. The appointments on December 30 were a clear indication that nobody cared about our proposals…”[viii]
The implication of all this is that the upcoming presidential election in Cameroon is a non-starter. Biya will rig it by all means necessary! He is prepared to do it at all costs and is getting his military primed to wreak havoc in the event of a post-electoral uprising.
Conclusion
I will end this discourse with a quote culled from the US State Department’s report[ix] on elections and human rights abuses in Cameroon. The report sheds ample light on how the international community, especially the United States of America views the electoral process in Cameroon:
Opinions vary on how free and fair elections are in Cameroon and are reflected in the US State Department report on human rights:
In October 2004 President Biya, who has controlled the government since 1982, was re-elected with approximately 70 percent of the vote in an election widely viewed as freer and fairer than previous elections and in which opposition parties fielded candidates. However, the election was poorly managed and marred by irregularities, in particular in the voting registration process, but most international observers deemed that the irregularities did not prevent the elections from expressing the will of the voters. Some observers said progress had been made and called the election transparent; others, such as the Commonwealth Observer Group, stated that the election lacked credibility. Some opposition parties alleged that there was multiple voting by individuals close to President Biya’s party and massive vote rigging. One domestic group described the election as a masquerade. The 2002 legislative elections, which were dominated by the CPDM, largely reflected the will of the people; however, there were widespread irregularities (US Department of State 2006, ‘Elections and Political Participation’ in Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2005 – Cameroon, 8 March – Attachment 3).
In a nutshell, if and when the CPDM ‘wins’ the October Presidential poll, it would be both naïve and intellectually disingenuous to claim that Biya’s ruling party ‘won’ because it has a sound system of organization and a truly democratic culture. Far from it! The facts discussed above speak for themselves: the ruling party in Cameroon is a gargantuan fraud contraption designed to rob the electorate of their right to freely choose their leaders. It is a nihilistic structure intended to nib all attempts at socio-political advancement in the bud.
About the author
Dr. Vakunta is professor of modern languages at the Department of Defense Language Institute in California, USA. He is the author of numerous books including Cry My Beloved Africa: Essays on the Postcolonial Aura in Africa (2007), No Love Lost (2008), Ntarikon (2009) and Indigenization of Language in the Francophone Novel of Africa: A New Literary Canon (2011). He runs a blog at http://www.vakunta.blogspot.com
Notes
[i]Gross, L. Martin. The Political Racket. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.
[ii] Postwatch. "Election Rigging in Cameroon: A State of the Devil’s Art.” Retrieved on July 19, 2011 from http://www.postwatchmagazine.com/2004/10/election_riggin.html
[iii] Solomon, Norman. The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media: Decoding Spin and Lies in Mainstream Media. Monroe, Common Courage Press, 1999.
[iv] Op.cit
[v] Bob Kohn. Journalistic Fraud. How the New York Times Distorts the News and How it can no Longer be Trusted. Nashville, WND Books, 2003.
[vi] Nothing is impossible in Cameroon
[vii] Royal pages
[viii] Yemti, Harry Ndienla. “ELECAM Appointment: A Death to Democracy in Cameroon.” Retrieved March 22, 2011 from http://www.zimbio.com/President+Paul+Biya/articles/4209437/ELECAM+appointment+death+democracy+Cameroon
ix] RRT Research Response. Retrieved on July 19, 2011 from http://www.mrt.rrt.gov.au
I also would like to point out that the internal revenue service must expand their reach on companies declaring bankruptcy so as to avoid penalties and taxes.
Posted by: loan modification attorney | Wednesday, 14 September 2011 at 02:25 AM