September 24, 2023

Cameroon news line

Voice of Cameroonians

Random News
Headlines

Cameroon Plans February Polls Under Shadow Of Violence

CNL7426 mins

Yaounde (Cameroon) (AFP) – Cameroon is poised to hold parliamentary and municipal elections in February but a bloody separatist conflict and political tensions are set to cloud the vote, experts say.

Anglophone separatists are fighting government troops in western Cameroon while the north of the country has come under attack from Boko Haram jihadists.

“These elections will not have optimum credibility,” Cameroonian academic Richard Makon told AFP, contending that in the present climate, “peaceful” polls were impossible.

“The security challenges in the Northwest and Southwest Regions are enormous,” he said, referring to a conflict between English-speaking separatists and security forces that have claimed more than 3,000 lives in two years.

The two regions with an anglophone colonial past are home to around 16 percent of the population of 25.8 million in the mainly francophone country.

In a remote region called the Far North, about a tenth of the population lives in deep poverty and at the mercy of Boko Haram.

Southern Cameroon long avoided such troubles, until men from the west recently launched ethnic attacks, wounding several people and setting businesses ablaze.

Despite the unrest, in a surprise move veteran President Paul Biya recently announced elections on February 9.

Members of parliament and town councils were last elected in 2013. Their five-year mandates ran out in 2018, but Biya has extended them twice.

The 86-year-old Biya has ruled the country for 37 years. He was returned to office in an election last year, which saw a significant drop in votes in the English-speaking regions.

– Plunging back into chaos? –

The 2018 presidential election triggered a major political crisis.

The runner-up, Maurice Kamto, immediately challenged the result and his Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) held protests.

Arrested at one of the demonstrations, Kamto was jailed in January but released in October following foreign pressure.

The 65-year-old opposition leader has since been denied permission to organise rallies.

The MRC has for months insisted that holding elections should depend on a definitive return to peace in the anglophone regions.

Kamto’s party has not said if it will contest the poll, though individual CRM members have announced they will run for office.

“The risk is that Cameroon will plunge into the chaos of post-electoral confrontation,” Emmanuel Simh, the CRM’s third vice-president, said.

“It will enshrine the partition of the country — on one hand, we will have the francophone regions where the population will be able to vote, and on the other, the anglophone regions where it will be impossible to do so,” he warned.

– Special status –

Last month, Biya’s regime arranged what it called a “major national dialogue” to settle the anglophone crisis but the main separatist movements boycotted the forum.

One of the key recommendations of the talks was more autonomy for the English-speaking regions.

But the initiative must be adopted by parliament, which has yet to consider the proposal.

The election announcement was a surprise, given that the resolutions of the major national dialogue “have not even begun to be taken into account”, Makon said.

“It’s a little hard to envisage elections being held in the best conditions to produce legitimate winners who are accepted by the population,” he said.

Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) is a colossus with 148 seats in the 180-member national assembly.

For all their doubts, opposition parties are caught between a rock and a hard place, Makon said.

“They must take part in the election because if they don’t, they will be shut out of political decisions for five years,” he said.

On the other hand, he argued, the ruling party “will no longer have a crushing majority… because of the ground taken by the MRC and the rise of (other) parties.”

He gave as an example the Cameroon Party for National Reconciliation (PCRN), led by Cabral Libii, a 39-year-old journalist who placed third in the 2018 presidential poll.

742 thoughts on “Cameroon Plans February Polls Under Shadow Of Violence”

  348. Masz przed sobą ciągnące się jak flaki z olejem popołudnie albo długą podróż? Nie daj się nudzie – wpadnij do baru w serwisie Game Planet i oddaj się najlepszej rozrywce w postaci całkowicie legalnego i bezpiecznego hazardu. Jednoręki bandyta to sekcja gier, w której czeka Cię wiele radości i niespodzianek. Wybierz swoją ulubioną wersję tej kultowej zabawy i kolekcjonuj punkty, wirtualne pieniądze oraz ogromną satysfakcję i radochę! To kiedy zaczynasz? A co najważniejsze – od której z gier? Historia Book of Ra nie ogranicza się do kasyn online, ponieważ źródła tej gry należy szukać w stacjonarnych automatach, a konkretnie w maszynie Admiral Hot Spot Platinum. Rozgrywka toczy się w przypadku tego jednorękiego bandyty na 5 bębnach i 9 lub 10 liniach wygrywających – w zależności od tego, czy korzystamy z Book of Ra, czy z nieco bardziej rozbudowanej wersji Book of Ra Deluxe.
    http://www.jumetal.co.kr/bbs/board.php?bo_table=free&wr_id=9349
    Oprogramowanie Scheinberga było wyjątkowe, ponieważ umożliwiało grę w turniejach online. PokerStars oferował także tradycyjne stoły do pokera online, pobierając prowizję za obsługę gier. Jednak to dzięki turniejom witryna stała się hitem wśród graczy. Firma szybko stała się drugą co do wielkości w branży, za PartyGaming z siedzibą w Gibraltarze, która zdominowała największy na świecie rynek pokera online w Stanach Zjednoczonych. W 2006 r. organizowała miliony turniejów online. Zaledwie pięć lat po uruchomieniu PokerStars było już warte około 2 mld USD. Jakie Są Numery Jackpot W Niemczech Wydawca: Fratria Sp. z o.o. ul. Legionów 126-128, 81-472 Gdynia. Polska ustawa hazardowa należy do najsurowszych w całej Unii. Nowelizacja przepisów w 2017 roku ograniczyła dostęp do kasyn zarejestrowanych poza terytorium RP i de facto uczyniła z polskich graczy i miłośników zakładów bukmacherskich przestępców. Na rynku funcjonować zaczęło jedyne legalne kasyno w Polsce Ciągle aktualizowany Rejestr Domen Zakazanych, do którego trafiają domeny operatorów kasynowych z całego świata, przypomina nam czasy średniowiecznego Index Expurgatorius, do którego wpisywano lektury zabronione. Ich posiadacze kończyli na stosie.

    Reply

  449. Hey There. I found your blog using msn. This is an extremely well written article. I will be sure to bookmark it and come back to read more of your useful information. Thanks for the post. I will definitely comeback.

    Reply

  456. It’s really a cool and helpful piece of information. I’m satisfied that you shared this helpful info with us. Please stay us informed like this. Thank you for sharing.

    Reply

  489. Wonderful goods from you, man. I’ve remember your stuff prior to and you’re simply too fantastic. I really like what you’ve acquired here, really like what you’re stating and the way through which you are saying it. You make it entertaining and you still take care of to stay it sensible. I can not wait to read far more from you. This is actually a wonderful site.

    Reply

  525. With havin so much content and articles do you ever run into any problems of plagorism or copyright violation? My website has a lot of completely unique content I’ve either authored myself or outsourced but it appears a lot of it is popping it up all over the web without my authorization. Do you know any solutions to help reduce content from being ripped off? I’d definitely appreciate it.

    Reply