CI-NEWS

Anticipating loss of legislative rerun: SDF accuses Constitutional Council of violating own ‘jurispr

2020-04-07

No: 480

Anticipating loss of legislative rerun: SDF accuses Constitutional Council of violating own ‘jurisprudence’.

The Constitutional Council is poised to declare the CPDM winners of the partial legislative elections that held in 11 constituencies of the North West and South west regions on 22 March 2020.

The verdict which will be proclaimed tomorrow became a foregone conclusion when the supreme organ of constitutionality of elections in Cameroon rejected all the 12 petitions filed before it by the Social Democratic Front (SDF) candidates calling for the total cancellation of the March 22, 2020 legislative by-election.

The President of the Constitutional Council, Clément Atangana, passed the ruling in the hearing of April 2, 2020. He said the petitions were admissible but the facts alleged in them were unfounded. Curiously, the complainants, the SDF substantive candidates in the 11 constituencies where the February 9, 2020 legislative election was cancelled and a rerun ordered were absent from the Constitutional Council. Even the well constituted SDF Counsel whose names were published in the programme for the hearing were all absent. The Councillor Rapporteur of the Constitutional Council, Arrey Florence Rita, read out the report in which the SDF substantive candidates in the by-election mainly accused Elections Cameroon (ELECAM), Ministry of Territorial Administration and the competing Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) of perpetrating irregularities that marred the smooth conduct of the election. They claimed for example that electors were prevented from voting as ELECAM organized the elections in polling centres instead of polling stations, as well as the worrying security situation.

While ruling on the petitions, the President of the Constitutional Council listed all the complainants and their constituencies. The 11 constituencies in which the SDF demanded the total cancellation of the by-election just as they did during the election proper are 10 in the North West Region and one in the South West. The constituencies in the North West Region are: Mezam North with one seat, Bui South with one seat, Bui West with one seat, Bui Centre with two seats, Menchum South with one seat, Mezam Centre with one seat, Mezam South with one seat, Menchum North with one seat, Momo East with two seats and Momo West with one seat. The lone constituency concerned in the South West Region was Lebialem with one seat.

Reacting to the rejection of all SDF petitions, the opposition party accused the Constitutional Council of violating its own jurisprudence.

During a press conference in Yaounde on Friday, the SDF expressed regret that the Constitutional Council had validated the results despite the fact that the elections took place in ‘unacceptable conditions’.

Honourable Joseph Mbah Ndam whose tenure in parliament is certainly coming to an end when the Constitutional Councl proclaims the results on Tuesday said voters in the 11 constituencies could not go out and vote but accused the CPDM of using military armoured cars to transport their voters-a luxury he says the SDF could not afford.

For his part, the first Vice President of the SDF, Honourable Joshua Osih said the party will continue to fight with their five parliamentarians as though they were “40,50 or 60”.

In a statement, Honorable Joshua Osih, First national Vice President of the party said the Constitutional Council had violated the legal precedent it set in cancelling them. He said during the rerun, “eleven constituencies were subject to serious irregularities. The same elements for which the February 9th 2020 polls had been cancelled by the Constitutional Council were reproduced on March 22nd.”

Among them he says was “the transfer and relocation of polling stations to public regrouping centres, once again carried out without the knowledge of the population … non-publication of polling stations before the ballot in the constituencies concerned … Failure to consider the security of voters, while polling stations and ELECAM staff benefited from increased security” and “the impossibility to campaign, since the security promised by ELECAM and the government for the SDF candidates was made available only one the day before polls opened.”

“By stubbornly organizing these reruns of March 22nd at any cost, the government threw our compatriots into the coronavirus slaughterhouse”, he proceeds.

Osih said rejecting the SDF petitions confirms “the little esteem this government has for the lives and the democratic rights of the people of the North West and South West regions.”

“While we do not accept this proclamation, we are bound, by virtue of our constitutional responsibilities, to respect it,” the statement says.

To Osih, “The SDF was not created for an election, but for the advancement of the wellbeing of the Cameroonian people through the provision of equal opportunities and social justice.”

“We take cognisance of the fact that for two elections in a row, or three considering these reruns, the people of the North West and the South West have been denied their human, democratic and constitutional right to vote,” he adds.

As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, Osih Joshua says “the present situation calls for all Cameroonians to stand together, to put our partisan political inclinations aside, and fight this pandemic as the mother of all battles we have ever faced. These are not times for partisan politics. This pandemic calls on our solidarity and patriotism. We sincerely do hope that those in power also understand these simple predispositions.”

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Anticipating loss of legislative rerun: SDF accuses Constitutional Council of violating own ‘jurispr