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The Electoral corps was convened on Thursday, 9th May
2002 (a public holiday) for the Municipal and
Legislative elections of 23 June 2002. This means
that, as required by Section 70 (1) of Law N° 91/020
of 16 December 1991 on Legislative elections and
Section 18 of Law N° 92/002 of 14 August 1992 on
Municipal elections, the lists of candidates were
supposed to be submitted to the appropriate
administrative offices not later than 5 days
(including Saturday and Sunday!) after the convening
of the electoral corps.
On Tuesday, 14th May 2002, representatives of Council
and Parliamentary lists of the SDF, conscious of the
bitter experiences they had in 1996 and 1997, invaded
the various administrative offices to deposit their
lists. In places where they met the Administrative
Officers on seat, they were asked to come back the
following day; in other places, the Officers were just
not on seat! When they showed up the following day,
they were informed that reception of lists had been
postponed to Friday, 17th May 2002. On Friday 17th,
they were informed that the deadline had been moved to
Tuesday 21st May 2002. Of course, this was all in
violation of the law!
In Buea, the D.O. who left his office before 2 p.m. on
14th May 2002 refused to receive the Council list of
the SDF on 15th May 2002, declaring that it was
already time barred! The SDF protested to ONEL in
Yaounde and MINAT. It took until Friday 17th May 2002,
and phone calls from the Director of Political Affairs
at MINAT and the Governor of the South West Province
for the list to be accepted by the D.O.!
All this was happening when the SDF list was the only
one that had been submitted to the D.O.! It was also
happening in the total absence of representatives of
ONEL, which remains holed up in Yaounde! It is
unfortunate that ONEL representatives are not actively
present in the field during this delicate period when
the Administration usually puts opposition political
parties under unnecessary stress by refusing to take
their lists or rejecting the lists with flimsy
excuses.
We say all this because the Vice President of ONEL
declared to the press two days ago that all political
parties have violated the law by not respecting the
deadline on the submission of candidatures laid down
by the law. If NEO were doing the job they said they
would do, what we expected to hear from them was the
number and type of lists that were in before the
expiry of the deadline, the type of complaints they
were receiving from political parties and what they
were doing about the complaints. Further, since they
have been telling us that it is MINAT that is
responsible for organising the elections, the blame
for violating the deadline would have been MINAT’s,
not that of political parties!
In any case, public opinion is aware that shifting
the blame to “political parties” is a ploy by ONEL to
hide the shortcomings of the CPDM that has been
virtually incapable of submitting complete lists in
most Constituencies across the country. It is in order
to allow the CPDM to get its lists ready that MINAT
has been shifting the deadlines. This generalisation
by ONEL only further confirms its partisan nature,
which we have been decrying all along.
This partisan nature of ONEL is the reason why the
names of CPDM candidates for the North was carried
from Yaounde to Garoua by none other than one of the
11 members of ONEL, Dr Abdoulaye Souaibou. It is also
the reason why the representative of ONEL for Logone
and Chari, Mr. Mahamat Mamadou was changed under
pressure from the Secretary General of the CPDM for
the simple reason that he is somebody who cannot be
manipulated by the CPDM! Indeed, this partisan nature
of ONEL was shouting when ONEL remained silent while
every Cameroonian of good faith was condemning the
fact that the CPDM put dozens of civil servants on
official mission with funds from the public treasury
and vehicles from the state car pool, not only to
reorganise the structures of the CPDM, but also to
select their candidates for these elections.
When the SDF wrote to ONEL on 28th November 2002
enumerating “some fundamental issues that should be
addressed by ONEL”, one such issue was the vagueness
of Section 3(2) of Law N° 92/002 of 14th August 1992
that requires that “the composition of lists should
reflect the sociologic composition of the
constituency”. We indicated to ONEL that in 1996, some
S.D.Os used a subjective interpretation of this
requirement to reject the lists of opposition
political parties! We expected that the interpretation
of this provision would be clarified by ONEL, in
collaboration with MINAT. This has not been the case.
Indeed, this time around, the whole process has
started all over again! The Council list of the SDF
for Idenau, Muyka and Tiko were rejected yesterday, 22
May 2002 by the S.D.O. for Fako for the reason that
there are not enough indigenous people in the lists,
as if the law states the number that should be
included in the list.
It is obvious that some S.D.Os will reject many more
lists of the SDF in the days ahead, across the
country, like it was the case in 1996, for the same
vague reason. We call on ONEL to be more active in the
field to correct some of these injustices on the spot.
We call on MINAT and its representatives to respect
the spirit and the letter of the electoral laws.
Yaounde, 23rd May 2002
Prof. T. ASONGANYI
Secretary General.
The end
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