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Cameroon: Over Twelve Years of Cosmetic Democracy

Francis B. Nyamnjoh

It is election day in Cameroon, Sunday, June 23, 2002. Polling stations nationwide have opened. Cameroonians are queuing up to vote for councillors and parliamentarians, when suddenly on national television and radio President Paul Biya postpones the elections for a week. His reason: inadequate preparations and poor distribution of ballot papers due to the incompetence of the Minister of Territorial Administration (MINAT)—Ferdinand Koungou Edima, whom Biya dismisses along with some of his key collaborators. Some see in this a sign that the president has at last yielded to more than a decade of pressure for a level playing field in Cameroon politics. To others, it is all déjà vu, a ploy to give a semblance of legitimacy to an election process fundamentally flawed from the outset.

Such scepticism is fuelled by the fact that the just postponed elections had already been postponed six months before, to ensure that “thorough preparations were made”. It is also fuelled by memories of the manipulations and manoeuvres that have corrupted and emptied multiparty politics of any meaning for most Cameroonians. Rescheduling the elections to coincide with the FIFA World Cup finals on June 30 was seen by many as a sinister move, for a football loving country like Cameroon. Since 1990, rigging elections has been perfected to the level of the ridiculous, making the theme a standing joke among satirical comedians, critical journalists, opposition politicians and ordinary Cameroonians who have mostly given up on expectations of change under the current regime. Unfortunately, much of this seems lost to the international community, for which Cameroon does not command the same celebrity status as Zimbabwe.

When Cameroonians are asked about the future of democracy, a common reply is: “on ne se tape même plus le corps ici” (“One has given up. Let’s wait and see.”). It does not seem to matter how many people cry foul nationally and internationally, as the rigging ‘caravan’ continues with impunity. No one has captured this better than the popular comedian Tchop Tchop, in ‘le chien aboie, la caravane passe’. “Elections”, the victors in his sketch claim, “are like a football match where one must prepare one’s players physically and psychologically. One can consult the Pygmy witchdoctor, corrupt the referee, or motivate (bribe) one’s opponents… You organise your elections knowing fully well that you are going to win them. You have yourself to blame for not having known what to do”. (Tchop Tchop, Candidat Unique de l’Opposition, vol. 1 audio sketch, 1997.)

A semblance of multi-party democracy

To most Cameroonians, the excitement at change and democracy that came with Biya’s succession to Ahidjo in 1982 and with clamours for liberalisation in the early 1990s, has given way to disenchantment and cynicism with the callous disregard of the ballot by the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM). Most would remember how the CPDM has acted as player and umpire since the state reluctantly embraced multi-partyism in December 1990, ending, in principle, the one-party era that began under President Ahmadou Ahidjo in 1966.

There has indeed been little dialogue and fair play in Cameroon’s multiparty democracy, even in comparison with most African countries. While the first multiparty legislative elections took place in 1991 under the one party electoral law, subsequent elections have since been governed by the highly controversial September 1992 electoral law. According to this new law, candidates for presidential elections must be “Cameroonian citizens by birth and show proof of having resided in Cameroon for an uninterrupted period of at least 12 (twelve) months”. In general, one has to prove a continuous stay of at least six months in a given locality to qualify to vote there, and to stand for elections in that locality one must be an indigene or a ‘long-staying resident’. An elaborate set of rules and stipulations determine who is to vote and where, as the ruling CPDM has tended, for its own political survival, to give a semblance of protecting ‘ethnic citizens’ from being outvoted by ‘ethnic strangers’. Other ‘requirements’ not explicitly formulated in the law are invoked to disqualify opposition candidates or their supporters. For instance, it is not uncommon for opposition supporters to be told in the city where they live that they have to vote in their home area (their village of origin, even when they were born in the city), but once in the village they are informed by the local authorities that they have to vote where they live (in the city). In this way many voters never make it to the polling station on election day. At every election, the newspapers are full of stories about opposition lists that have been disqualified by MINAT, either for failure to ‘reflect the sociological components’ of the locality or for including candidates that did not ‘quite belong’ in the area concerned. But being an umpire as well as player, the CPDM never suffers similar rejections.

Calls for independent electoral commission

Prior to the June 2002 elections, the repressive electoral environment had provoked calls for an independent electoral commission, which does not seem to have prompted more than a cosmetic response from President Biya and the CPDM, both intent on recycling themselves through the sterile pursuit of a semblance of multiparty democracy. In October 2000, Cardinal Tumi of the Douala Archdiocese added his voice to such calls, in an interview with Jeune Afrique Economie (no. 317, October 2–15, 2000), in which he was very critical of the government and called for an independent electoral commission. The MINAT, Ferdinand Koungou Edima, riposted in a press release, accusing the Cardinal of: lying, anti-patriotism, wanting to stand for presidential elections, violating the principle of the separation of the state and church, having little respect for those who govern, questioning the organisation of elections in Cameroon, attempting to insidiously turn Cameroonians and the international community away from the huge efforts and sacrifices made by the government to bail out Cameroon from the economic crisis and insecurity, not being humble and, being tribalistic.

The Cardinal retorted in an open letter, claiming that as someone who loved his country, it was incumbent on him to criticise those in power who instead of serving insisted on being served. “I criticise my fellow citizens who steal, exploit and use Cameroon for their selfish interest bitterly and without rancour”. He insisted on the need “to respect and protect the right of Cameroonians to freely choose those who manage” their affairs. It was the duty of the church, he affirmed, to “denounce the dishonesty of some government officials” and to encourage ordinary people “not to obey directives of civil authorities, when these precepts are at variance with the requirements of morality”. He argued that authority must be legitimate in order to be respected. The current authorities in Cameroon lacked such legitimacy, mainly because of the corrupt and crooked manner in which elections had been organised in the country since independence.

In November 2000, the opposition asked for an independent electoral commission. But the CPDM insisted on a National Electoral Observatory (NEO). The opposition boycotted the debate on the bill that modified the electoral law to provide for NEO, but as in the past, such a boycott did not deter the government from carrying on with the business of keeping up appearances. As The Herald newspaper noted, the “fact… that the opposition was not even allowed to have an input in the passage of the bill… is yet more evidence of the disdain in which the government holds the opposition” (The Herald 29 December 2000). Although NEO was intended “to contribute to the observance of the electoral law in order to ensure regular, impartial, objective, transparent and fair elections”, it is difficult to envisage a free and fair election under NEO, given the CPDM’s perennial bad faith, and given the fact that NEO members are appointed by a presidential decree. When President Biya announced the postponement of the June 2002 elections and sacked the minister in charge, it became evident that NEO had never really been in charge. As expected, the confusion, drama, violence and controversy of the elections, yielded a landslide victory of 149 of a total of 180 seats in the parliament for the CPDM, reducing every other party to a dying regional flicker, and imposing the CPDM as the only national party.

Stalled democratic process

As long as free and fair multiparty elections imply a risk of losing power, the CPDM and President Biya will continue, as their actions and vacillations indicate, to ignore the wishes of ordinary Cameroonians. To do this effectively, they will have to continue doing what they do best, namely: stating one thing and doing entirely another, disallowing Cameroon-ians in the diaspora from participating in elections at home, complicating the process of obtaining national identity and electoral cards that qualify one to vote or to be voted for, withholding electoral cards from those least likely to vote for the CPDM, locating polling stations in the homes of people loyal to them, erecting barricades and co-opting chiefs, bureaucrats, intellectuals, journalists, vandals, businessmen and women to facilitate illegitimate victories, promoting pre- and post-election violence and deaths to justify irregularities, and opting for tailor-made and doctored electoral constituencies that favour CPDM strongholds to the detriment of the opposition and of democracy. They have also ensured that the National Elections Observatory is CPDM in everything but name, and that it neither barks nor bites. Within the ranks of the opposition itself, the CPDM has encouraged floor-crossing, dissension, scandals, and various crises in its favour, with tempting offers to key individuals and communities.

It is evident that the democratic process in Cameroon has stalled. Despite multipartyism, most Cameroonians have had little reason to believe that they are anything other than pawns in a game of chess played by the power elite; the latter set their agendas for them, use them to serve their ends, and at the end of the day, abandon them to the misery and ignorance to which they are accustomed. Democracy is yet to mean more than something cosmetic, an empty concept or slogan devoid of concrete meaning, used to justify excesses of various kinds, especially by those determined to celebrate the status quo.

Ambitions of dominance have only resulted in power without responsibility, and in arrogant insensitivity to the predicaments of ordinary Cameroonians by those who claim to lead. With even the critical elite increasingly opting for shortcuts to power, privilege and comfort, ordinary Cameroonians are left at the mercy of poverty and an insensitive state. In the words of Cardinal Tumi, ‘many families can no longer send even a single child to primary school; in many families, children do not eat their fill; people die of hunger in Cameroon; people die due to inability to afford medical care; road infrastructure is deteriorating—take a look at the roads in Douala city! It is a shame; hospitals are without first aid drugs; public buildings are no longer renovated’.

If Tumi’s criticism is dismissed because he does not share the same ethnic origins as President Biya, the same cannot be said of Bikutsi musicians from Biya’s own home area. Onguene Essono (1996) discusses critical Bikutsi songs composed by popular and village musicians, disillusioned by a regime that has promised without fulfilling, and that has capitalised on Beti solidarity for the selfish interests of the elite few in power. The songs reject the god-like status President Biya has assumed, based on false promises, and the torture that the insensitivities of his regime have imposed even on his own supporters from the same ethnic origin.

Yet there is talk of the country having maintained an impressive 4.5 percent economic growth at the same time as these criticisms are voiced. Corruption is thriving, and the elite few are swimming in opulence from embezzlement and kickbacks. And the government does not want to be held accountable for this or to be criticised for not making things better. As they say in French, “le chef a toujours raison, même en caleçon de bain” (“the boss is always right, even when in swimming costume”), and it must beat the ruling party’s imagination why some Cameroonians still cannot understand this and shut up. Nevertheless, its high-handedness, arrogance, and absolute power imply that the government can afford to distance itself from and ignore the desperate cries of the disenchanted and disenfranchised masses. Liberal democracy, even by African standards, is yet to take off in Cameroon.