Cameroon’s electoral process has always drawn criticism from the political opposition. The government, through its election-organizing body ELECAM, vets candidates with the aim of handicapping the most popular, critics say. The Ministry of Territorial Administration is also heavily involved, leveraging state resources against the opposition.
That makes the election outcome predictable for voters like Maimo B. Dzekashu. He is the CEO of Maimo Holdings, a group of companies with investments in agriculture, transport, and logistics. “All my life I’ve only known one president, and it’s shameful in a country like Cameroon where the median age is 19 and over 60% of our population is under 30.”
The government’s efforts to put some distance between itself and ELECAM hasn’t borne much fruit. ELECAM’s members are government appointees, which lends little credibility to the process.
The 2018 presidential election results were hotly contested because the citizenry and civil society invested themselves in the process. An advantage they had over similar efforts in the past was technology and speed, helping young voters to post results online and in real time. They intend to apply more pressure this time around. “This [year] we will go vote and monitor those votes because when we lose guard, they steal our votes. When we don’t show up, they replace us with minors and dead people.” Maimo warns.
Election watchers, however, will be facing some familiar challenges.
Edicts against citizen engagement
The government has spent weeks in the run-up to the election warning against the publication of ‘uncertified results.’ “We have faced public threats from officials, including statements from Minister Paul Atanga Nji of MINAT (Ministry of Territorial Administration). These threats appear to stem from misunderstandings or deliberate misrepresentations of our mission.” Kingsley Sheteh Newuh, a political activist mobilizing election volunteers tells Vanguard Africa.
The ministry has issued special press passes for journalists to cover the elections, with authorities now able to choose who reports on election day. Newuh believes that these accreditations are not necessary. “Our volunteers do not hold official government-issued passes. They do not need them, because we are relying on the constitutional right of every voter to be present when votes are counted.”
Still, Newuh and his team at The Nation Builders, a group of political activists that include lawyer Michele Ndoki are taking precautions to ensure the safety of their volunteers. “Protecting our volunteers is a top priority. Mechanisms include secure and anonymous reporting channels, clear guidance on safe conduct in public spaces, instructions for minimizing personal risk while providing support and advice from experienced organizers in real time.”
Marching closely behind MINAT is the National Communication Council (NCC), Cameroon’s press watchdog. Its chairman, Joseph Chebonkeng Kalabubse is a retired state media journalist. His stated mission during these elections has been to combat ‘hate speech.’ Cameroonians, though, believe he is out to stifle free expression given his history of allowing government agents a pass during his debate-moderating days. He now decides what hate speech is, and that could mean anything in this tense political environment.
Cameroon News Agency (CNA) journalist Ngala Hansel has written several articles and opinion pieces on the upcoming elections and is navigating through the challenges that come with dissent. CNA has close to 400,000 followers on Facebook where he suspects some of their content is getting censored. “We have not had direct threats as such but have found some of our content being restricted as elections draw closer, especially content that is critical of [President] Biya. We made posts about a poll ahead of the election and some were taken down, and we had to repost later. Not sure if it was government-led or just a coincidence but the timing is troubling.”
Like Nation Builders, Ngala and CNA are relying on citizens to help get word out. Citizen participation in the electoral process powered opposition leader Maurice Kamto’s challenge of the 2018 results and triggered his eventual disqualification from the 2025 race. Importantly, rather than discourage Cameroonians, the government’s actions have pushed them to scale and innovate in the important affair of vote counting.
Mobilization of election observers
While candidates and activists urge citizens to rally against potential vote rigging by staying at polling stations until official results are tallied and published, Nation Builders is deploying Diso, an election-monitoring app that will be used by volunteers.
“We currently have just under 5,000 volunteers nationwide. Our registration link was officially launched today [October 9], and we are actively encouraging more people to join. In addition to individual registrations, we are collaborating with partner organizations to expand our volunteer base further. This broad network will help ensure comprehensive coverage across the country and across polling units,” Newuh explains. He’s also keen on the kind of data volunteers collect.
“Our volunteers primarily collect qualitative observations at polling stations, documenting incidents, procedures, voter experiences and final results published at the end of the process. To complement this, we are introducing a crowdsourcing platform, which allows Cameroonians from across the country to submit quantitative results. This dual approach enables us to cross-verify information and produce both detailed qualitative insights and robust quantitative data.”
Volunteers will submit their data through Diso and a secure mobile-first web platform. There is the possibility, as in 2018, that results from observers will not match results proclaimed by ELECAM.
“If our findings differ from ELECAM’s official results, we will publish our data and methodology in a responsible and transparent manner. Our volunteers will simply be reporting ELECAM's own results from different polling units, meaning that if there are discrepancies, they are most likely not to be from our end.” Newuh insists.
The election stakes are high
Today, Cameroonians have never had it worse. The country lacks foundational infrastructure for businesses to build on. There is a palpable feeling of despair driven by inflation, unemployment, insecurity, corruption, and a crumbling healthcare system in the midst of mounting debt.
“Just these past 3 months [government] authorized over FCFA 500 billion ($882,000,000) in loans. Our country is going down in shambles, held captive by a few elites, leaving them to rig another election [and] leaving Biya to rule until 99! That’s unheard of in a country filled with youths,” Maimo laments.
Issa Tchiroma, the opposition’s leading candidate resigned from government only three months ago and is drawing crowds that many thought was impossible given his controversial association with the long-ruling Biya regime. The ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) has had more defections during this election cycle than ever. CPDM cadres have been heckled and harassed, and citizens are pulling down Paul Biya’s billboards to cheers from citizen bystanders.
There is a hot debate online between the people hurt by Tchiroma’s betrayals and those who now believe their favorite villain stands the best chance of liberating the nation from the despotic rule of Paul Biya. If endorsements matter in this election, he’s raking them in. Cold-hard pragmatism seems to be jetting the prodigal son home, but that is too much optimism to carry to ELECAM, Cameroon’s Constitutional Council, and the commander-in-chief.
Both sides of the Tchiroma dilemma however agree on the need for citizens to keep a close eye on the vote counting. “Going there with my power bank and solar lamp and two phones just in case,” Maimo says as he warms up for election day. The Biya government will be keeping a close eye too.
Tony Vinyoh is a Cameroonian writer with numerous by-lines in a range of international and local media outlets, including for the BBC and Fodor’s Travel.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of Vanguard Africa, the Vanguard Africa Foundation, or its staff.