Elections postponed by a week

Cameroon's legislative and municipal elections, initially scheduled for Sunday, have been postponed to 30 June. The last-minute postponement, announced on Saturday, cost Territorial Administration Minister Ferdinand Koungou Edima his job. "It became apparent on the evening of the 22nd (of June) that preparations for the operation were not completed and that there were deficiencies in several circumscriptions," the secretary-general of the presidency, Marafa Hamidou Yaya, said on Sunday. In an interview on state-owned Cameroon Radio and Television, President Paul Biya added some details. He said there had been constituencies and even entire provinces without ballot papers, while some ballot boxes had no locks. "Organising elections in such conditions ran counter to what we were hoping for: fair, transparent and true elections," Biya said. "This incompetence will be severely sanctioned." Within hours, Edima, the minister in charge of organising the elections, had been relieved of his post and replaced, for the time being, by Yaya. Biya also dismissed Jerome Mvondom, director of the Societe d'edition et de presse du Cameroun - the state company that publishes the pro-government Cameroon Tribune newspaper and which had been contracted to print the ballots. Mvondom's replacement, Marie Claire Nnana, has the "gigantic" task of making sure that within a week the State has the "tools" it needs to organise the elections properly, Communication Minister Jacques Fame Ndongo said as he welcomed her to her new post. However, many believe one week is unlikely to change much. Saidou Yaya, vice-president of the opposition the Social Democratic Front (SDF), said the polls should be postponed by "one, even two or three months" so that all irregularities can be fixed. The SDF is one of 48 political parties vying for seats in the 180-member parliament. It is also competing, along with 25 others, for slots on municipal councils throughout the country.