Presidential election lacked credibility - Commonwealth

A Commonwealth observer group that monitored Cameroon's presidential election last week said the poll, which returned President Paul Biya to power for a further seven-year term, "lacked the necessary credibility". The team, led by former Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark, said in a departure statement on Saturday that the electoral roll had been poorly managed and many people had been deprived of the right to vote. It also expressed concern that many of Cameoon's 16 million population, particularly young people, had failed to vote because they felt alienated from the political process. "We must stress that while it is possible to count the number of those who voted, no one can quantify the number of those people who have become disenchanted and disengaged from the democratic process, particularly young people," the Commonwealth statement said. It noted that the entire electoral process had been run by the Interior Ministry and recommended that Cameroon set up an independent electoral commission to conduct future ballots. "We believe that in a number of key areas the electoral process lacked the necessary credibility," the Commonwealth observers concluded. Nevertheless, they broadly endorsed the final result of the election, despite howls of fraud from the opposition. "Even given the deficiency in the management of the register, we believe the intention of those who voted was reflected in the result," the Commonwealth observers said. The Interior Ministry said on Friday that Biya, who has ruled Cameroon for the past 22 years, had won with 75 percent of the vote on a turnout of nearly 80 percent. However, only 4.6 million of the estimated eight million people over the age of 20 who are qualified to vote actually got their names on the electoral register. Many of those who thought they were entitled to vote couldn't find their names on the register and there were widespread allegations of multiple voting by individuals close to Biya's Cameroon People's Democratic Movement who had been issued with several voting cards. According to the Interior Ministry, John Fru Ndi, who commands strong support in the Anglophone highlands of southwestern Cameroon, came a distant second in the presidential election with 17 percent of the vote. Adamou Ndam Njoya, a former government minister standing on behalf of a coalition of nine other opposition parties, was placed third with just under five percent. Fru Ndi and Ndam Njoya have both accused the government of massive vote rigging and have appealed to the Cameroon's Constitutional Council for the election to be annulled. The poll was also heavily criticised by a force of 1,200 election monitors of monitors fielded by the Roman Catholic church in Cameroon. But the tone of criticism voiced by other observer groups has been gentler. A mission from the International Organisation of French-Speaking Countries (OIF) said voting took place peacefully and transparently in "good conditions" even though it expressed some reservations about the way the election had been organised. And the National Elections Observatory, an 11-member watchdog committee, set up by the Cameroonian government with several independent members, said voters had been able to "freely express their choice," despite the existence of various "anomalies" and "irregularities" in the electoral register.