Cameroon’s regional elections will be held on Sunday, December 6. An unprecedented vote in the country, organized to speed up the decentralization process, and an equally unusual vote, as it will take place through indirect elections with two electoral colleges. For Cameroon in the election, which is responsible for organizing the vote, it is therefore a special vote, even with a security challenge.
With our special correspondent in Yaoundé, Jeanne Richard
Polls, polling stations, ballot boxes, indelible ink or even minutes on the bill … Erik Essousse, General Manager of Electoral Cameroon (Elecam), makes sure everything is ready. The equipment is already on the ground and the staff is being trained in this unprecedented vote. Due to the 90 council members elected in each region, 20 come from the traditional chief.
“The specificity of this choiceis that this vote will be mixed with two electoral colleges: the one for the City Council, which will elect the departments for the departments and the one for the traditional managers, who will choose their comrades. There will therefore be a vote for each university, the director of Elecam explains.
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And while violence linked to Boko Haram in the far north is increasing, and that the English-speaking separatists in the north-west and south-west regions have demanded a boycott of the vote, the security challenge is great.
“We are securing the corridors, which allow election materials to reach the ground. On election day, we will protect the polling stations, the voters and the people. (…) We take all possible precautions. There is no reason why we should not succeed, Erik Essousse assures.
Threats, fires, kidnappings and reprisals … Several incidents, attributed to separatists, had punctured the recent elections in the English-speaking zone.
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