In Cameroon, the government is cracking down on dissent by murdering at least two people and arresting dozens of demonstrators ahead of the announcement of final results in this month’s presidential elections.
According to local media reporting based on early election results from the electoral commission (Elecam), the 92-year-old incumbent, Paul Biya, is virtually guaranteed victory. The prospect has elicited anger and a lack of confidence among his opponents, resulting in unrest in some of the regions.
The longest-serving head of state in the world is Biya, the president of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), and he has been in power since 1982.
Clément Atangana, the president of the Constitutional Council, announced in the statement issued earlier this week that official results would be published on 27 October. The council has already rejected 10 petitions claiming electoral malpractice, some of them by the opposition parties, in rulings that have only served to encourage further suspicion of the process among people.
Issa Tchiroma Bakary, a long-time Biya ally and foe who now heads the Cameroon National Salvation Front, said he won the election earlier this week with 54.8 percent of the vote over Biya, who got 31.3 percent.
Tchiroma claimed that the Constitutional Council would have been culpable of breach of trust in case it ratified the results, which he had claimed were manipulated. He said, “the historic scale of ballot stuffing and falsification will never be acceptable to the vast majority of the Cameroonian people.”
The ruling party of Biya has claimed that the victory was a grotesque hoax and unacceptable fraud in a state of law by Tchiroma, and it was awaiting the official results calmly in a statement.
On 22nd October, in the hometown of Garoua in the north, the protesters confronted security agents who threw teargas canisters. There were at least two people who died, including a teacher who was killed by stray bullets. Even in the capital, Yaounde, people protested, with crowds that quickly gathered in strategic points in the administration, which were quickly dispersed by the security forces.
The anger has now assumed a personal tone in the city of Maroua, in the Far North region, the political stronghold of Tchiroma, which is one of the poorest provinces of Cameroon. In front of the office of the regional governor, a group of youths left a handwritten letter depicting despair with regard to poverty and political marginalization.
Maroua youths are writing to you today to tell you that we are tired of this country, that the Far North area is the worst of all areas, and that we are poor. Issa [Tchiroma] is a man who was voted for by all the citizens, although the government wants to rig the vote. It is preferable to join Boko Haram in Sambisa [in Nigeria, just beyond the border of Cameroon] than to continue staying there another seven years. You will count in blood in Maroua. Should you release us, you and the CPDM agitators?
Governments have been quick to attempt to suppress the opposition. The minister of the territorial administration, Paul Atanga Nji, in a televised speech, said over 20 individuals arrested in the course of the protests would be tried in a military court.
Instead, he issued a warning that the government never accepted rebellion and insurrection as they took them seriously.
Wednesday and Thursday have seen reports of some form of internet restrictions in the commercial capital of Douala and other regions of the country, which the internet monitor NetBlocks confirmed. State operator Camtel attributed network connectivity problems to the failure of a technical incident with the Wacs cable and assured that service was slowly being restored in some locations.
The revered National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon has urged peace. On Tuesday, the archbishop of Bamenda and president of the NECC, Andrew Fuanya Nkea, said, “It is our hope that, through the assistance of God and the dedication of all, our nation will finally have peace and stability in truth and will become stronger.”
