Rise above Challenges to Vote Massively in October Polls: Cameroon’s Catholic Bishops to Electorate

According to NECC members, elections help to preserve a country’s stability and ensure that constitutional terms of office are respected. 

They urge Cameroonians to look at elections as a historic opportunity to carry out significant reforms. 

“Where there is transparency, the verdict of the ballot can demonstrate the will to address, for example, the obstacles that constitute a real stumbling block to development, such as systemic corruption in politics, corruption in general and impunity,” they say. 

The Catholic Bishops express concern that numerous pockets of resistance from certain armed militias in Cameroon's Far North, North-West and South-West regions could jeopardize the climate of peace that they say is essential for elections to run smoothly. 

They also highlight migration, high cost of living, urban criminality, tribalism, hate speech and acts, and bigotry as some of the challenges bedevilling the country as polls approach.

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The Catholic Church leaders also point out juvenile delinquency and widespread unemployment as situations they say could “adversely affect the peaceful, serene and fair conduct of the elections in our country.”

In Cameroon’s October elections, Paul Biya who has been president since 1982 is expected to stand for election for an eighth presidential term in the Central African nation, where Presidents have a seven-year mandate.

Constitutional amendments that President Biya’s party, Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM), spearheaded in 2008, abolishing the two-term presidential limit, occasioned his “extraordinarily long tenure”. 

President Biya is Africa’s second longest serving Head of State after President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea.

In their letter issued March 28, the NECC members note that doubts about the legitimacy of the candidates in Cameroon’s forthcoming elections are compounded by the problems most often decried at almost every presidential election in the country.

They list problems such as violence during the campaigns, with some candidates not being welcome in certain constituencies; post-election violence triggered by disputes over the official results; fiddling with electoral registers, vote buying; and, in some constituencies, destruction of ballot papers. 

The Catholic Bishops note that some voters in Cameroon feel that voting in such conditions, without tackling the endemic corruption, is simply perpetuating the status quo.

However, voting is “a way of showing your love for your country, especially when it concerns a presidential election”, NECC members say, and add, “We therefore urge you to perform your civic duty conscientiously, to exercise your civic right responsibly, and not because of any selfish interest.”

Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Catholic Bishops have invited the people of God in the country to carry out their normal civic duties, noting that there is no reason why Christians should fail to take an interest in politics. 

Elections, they say, is a wake-up call to Christians and other believers to not only denounce the problems that Cameroonians are facing, but to commit themselves with others to analysing situations, discerning what is at stake, and proposing concrete courses of action.

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Agnes Aineah is a Kenyan journalist with a background in digital and newspaper reporting. She holds a Master of Arts in Digital Journalism from the Aga Khan University, Graduate School of Media and Communications and a Bachelor's Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communications from Kenya's Moi University. Agnes currently serves as a journalist for ACI Africa.