The Entrepreneur - Cameroon's Premier Economic & Business Journal

Buea Explodes into Euphoric Celebrations as Charles Mbella Moki is Re-elected Municipal Mayor

The Night of the Long Knives

By Ernest L. Molua and Ben Nakomo, with photos courtesy Bright Lokenge

Presided over by the Senior Divisional Officer of Fako Division, Mr Benard Okalia Bilai, the First Ordinary Session of the Council of the Buea Municipality held on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 in the Buea council hall. The sole agenda of the session was the election of City Mayor. Following the landslide victory of the Cameroon’s People Democratic Movement, CPDM in the July 22, 2007 twin municipal and parliamentary elections, the CPDM party defeated the SDF and a bandwagon of disorientated and poorly managed 250 political parties. According to the law in the management of councils, newly elected councilors meet on the First Tuesday following elections to vote for the Mayor.

249 Politically Feeble Parties Crushed at the Polls: A Complete Remix of Dreary Politicians and a Wrecked Press

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Tragedy of Cameroon’s multiparty politics, Mirror of the Failure of Political Entrepreneurship

By Ben Nakomo, Sirri Alette Ngwa and Yvonne Soppo Disso, with additional field reporting and comments from Harry MacYemti, Carl Mbinglo and Bright Lokenge

Perhaps, in the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king. This is an apt description of the exploits of Cameroon's ruling political party, CPDM, a one-eyed steward in the land of blind 250 political entrepreneurs. In the 1990s Cameroon exploded into euphoric embrace of multiparty politics. The country had come to the end of a long experimental walk, in which the country migrated from multiparty politics in the 1950s to 1966, into a one-party state for most of the 1970s to the 1990s. In 1992 the country witnessed the legalization of more than 120 political parties, following the deregulation of political activities and endorsement of freedom of speech. On the shadows of its political evolution, Cameroon has natured a vibrant private press, which may lack the financial muscle of their peers within the Anglosaxon world yet fluid with overexcited reporting and boisterous analysis. Whilst editorials and reports are a far cry of the heightened professionalism and journalistic discipline in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and even Uganda, the press in Cameroon makes up for a mirror image of the society in which it operates. The unholy marriage between a seemingly nearsighted press and devastating political adventurism by failed political managers fittingly explain the climate of Cameroon’s political evolution. This context forms the background on which Cameroon, can be properly judged from within and without, on the just concluded municipal and parliamentary elections. Evidence abound on the superfluity of news reports in cyberspace, newsstands and airwaves.

Distribution of Seats in Cameroon's Parliament Shapes Up

Latest returns from last Sunday's polls in Cameroon registered at the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization indicate that the CPDM has won 156 seats in parliament, the SDF 15, the NUDP 4, the CDU 4 and the Progressive Movement 1. The result from Santa is still being awaited. The Supreme Court that will be sitting in for the Constitutional Council still has to proclaim the results officially. Meantime, candidates who wish to contest the results of the legislative elections had up till yesterday to file their complaints at the Supreme Court while those who intend to contest the results of the local council elections have until today 27 July 2007 to do so. Still concerning the elections, a national commission charged with the final counting of votes for the legislative election of 22 July 2007 has been set up. The commission was set up by a ministerial order from the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization.

Commonwealth Requests for True Democracy in Cameroon

By Harry MacYemti
  The Commonwealth has pledged to assist the government of Cameroon to establish a credible independent management commission to handle future elections in the country. Observations reveal many Cameroonians who believe strongly that the poor management of elections in the country constitutes a veritable apparatus to ignite civil strife. “There will come a time when the people will rise up and say enough is enough” says Christian Cardinal Tumi, Archbishop of Douala, in his reaction on the poor management of elections in the country. According to Ni John Fru Ndi, Chairman of Cameroon’s frontline opposition party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF), “for Cameroon’s democracy to move forward, we need an independent body that will be in charge of elections in Cameroon from A-Z, that is, from registration to the proclamation of results”.

Cameroon police overrun opposition town after poll

By Tansa Musa

Cameroonian police seized control of the northwestern opposition stronghold of Santa on Wednesday, July 25, 2007, amid peaceful protests by voters alleging the ruling party wanted to steal Sunday's parliamentary polls. Veteran President Paul Biya's Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) has already won 152 of the 180 National Assembly seats, with seven still to be announced, amid widespread allegations of vote-buying, intimidation and fraud. Opposition politicians in Santa said military police were harassing their supporters, some 2,000 of whom staged a sit-down protests outside local electoral offices to demand the publication of results from the legislative and municipal polls.

Charles Mbella Moki, The 'Pichichi' of Fako Politics, Wins Again

Commentary By Ben Nakomo, additional reporting from Harry MacYemti

Before July 22, 2007, he looked down and out. Political pundits dismissed him with a wave of the hand, as opposing SDF stalwarts presented a heavy challenge. Fought from within his own CPDM party, physically slapped and assaulted on the evening of Tuesday, July 17, 2007 by a well-placed senior government official from his own tribe but from the supposedly ought-to-rule class, torn into shreds by other elites from his native Fako, a victim of incessant gossips and abuse by people who assert they are more educated than him yet have never won an election, Charles Mbella Moki's star dwindled and danced with the wind. As the SDF, the APF and politicians from a dozen other political parties roared and challenged his incumbency, Charles Mbella Moki virtually laid on the tarmac of political defeat, as his campaign was starved of funds sent by the ruling CPDM central committee in Yaounde, yet pocketed and held hostage by claimants of the right to rule.

Biya's party routs opposition in Cameroon election

By Tansa Musa

Veteran Cameroon President Paul Biya's ruling party routed the opposition in parliamentary elections at the weekend that his main opponents have already denounced as a sham, provisional results showed on Tuesday. Biya's Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) secured a crushing majority of 152 of the 180 National Assembly seats, up from 149 in the previous legislature, with six seats to come. The main opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) clinched just 15 seats, down from 22 in the last legislature, although three of the six remaining seats are in the northwestern heartland of party leader John Fru Ndi.

Cameroon Votes, amidst Complaints of Irregularities

By Harry MacYemnti, in Buea

Cameroonians on July 22, 2007 went to the polls to elect members of parliament and municipal councilors. But the said elections were predictably marred by violence and massive rigging beside the fact that many Cameroonians boycotted the elections for various reasons. At least one militant from the ruling CPDM party, suspecting of abetting rigging, was killed and several others were reported injured, following bloody inter-party clashes and mob actions.

Opposition cries foul in Cameroon parliament polls

By Tansa Musa, Reuters

Cameroon held parliamentary polls on Sunday but few voters turned out and the opposition denounced what it called widespread fraud, including polling stations in private homes and a lack of opposition ballot papers. The polls are expected to strengthen President Paul Biya's 25-year grip on power in the central African country, but the opposition has already said the vote is rigged, international observers are boycotting it and few voters have registered. Hours after booths opened there were no queues to be seen at most polling stations in the capital Yaounde.

Election Campaign Rounds up in Buea

Polling Stations get a ‘make-over’ waiting for the First Vote Casts

Juliana Ndolo Mbua & Agnes E. Fonkeng

Twenty four hours to the Parliamentary and municipal elections in Cameroon, political parties and their militants are knotting the loose end of their campaign strategies. Party uniforms, slogans and campaign messages are seen everywhere. Prospective voters crowd the Divisional Officer's offices for their voter-cards, while business persons in Buea, especially those operating beer parlours and other gambling houses are making the best out of the election fiesta.