By Francis Wache
There are now 51 candidates for the October 9 presidential poll. There are the young and the old. There are women. There are old-timers and newcomers. They all aspire to rule Cameroon.
What is not clear about most of these declared candidates is how they intend to govern Cameroon. In others words, what is their vision? What is their stand on key issues like education, security, health, roads, infrastructure and many others?
Is it a money-making bid, as cynics scoff? After collecting their sums from government, most of these so-called candidates will appear on television, make insipid and soporific declarations and, then, go home. Some will hibernate for the next seven years until October 2018 when Cameroonians will, once more, be called to elect another President or re-elect the incumbent.
Choosing a leader to preside over the destiny of a nation, especially when the mandate runs for seven long years (!), is serious business. That is why the levity demonstrated by some of those claiming to run for the presidency should be condemned outright. They should be roundly denounced for toying with a people’s destiny.
A good number of the presidential hopefuls can be referred to, at best, as jokers and buffoons and, at worst, as political scammers. They surface at this moment, register to run with FCFA 5m, then, collect FCFA 60m and nothing else is ever heard about them. That is nothing but reeking opportunism.
Even in the U.S., with a population of above 300million, a presidential contest usually settles down to two candidates: one for the Democrats and the other for the Republicans. Similarly, in France, our ‘political mentor’, during the 2007 presidential duel, there were 12 runners up in the first round before the battle finally boiled down to two, pitting Seglolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy. France has a population of above 60 million.
In next-door Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, with a population of about 154 million, there were only 21 contestants in last year’s presidential battle. We should not forget that Cameroon has only about 20 million inhabitants! To talk, therefore, of 51 candidates is nothing but a farce. Everything should be done to avert Cameroon appearing as the butt of scorn and ridicule.
With the current comedy in Cameroon, a candidate can win with as little as 30 percent. In fact, in 1992, Biya won with 39 percent! Political analysts point out that Biya could give himself 30 percent and ‘share’ 70 percent to the other over two score rivals. In the end, the winner –Biya - would be said to be legal but, in reality, far from legitimate. After all, Plato, the Greek philosopher, posited, centuries ago, that, “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
As Biya and cronies continue to concoct the ongoing charade, they should remember what Arthur Schopenhauer said about Truth. “All truth,” said he, “passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
The first stage of the truth in this matter is that Biya wants to win at all cost. He has, to this effect, put in a machinery to deliver the expected results.
The second stage is that the New Deal and its bumptious bunch are gearing to violently counteract anybody who attempts to rock the boat of their natural candidate. The final stage will be that when what goes up would have come down these same CPDM ideologues will announce from the rooftops that they knew it, as a self-evident truth, that the end would be catastrophic.
Even in less developed democracies, like in the Ivory Coast, recently, after fielding a barrage of candidates, the competition came down to two – Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Dramane Ouattara – following the winnowing of the less serious chaff from contestants of calibre. In such cases, there is a second round to ensure that the winner scores more than 50 percent of the votes cast.
That is why, for now, Cameroonians are on tenterhooks, hoping that ELECAM will be intransigent and rigorous in poring over the files and disqualifying those who want to make a mockery of Cameroon’s nascent democracy. It is easy, after careful scrutiny, to weed out of the unseemly pack, the circus clowns and adventurers.
If ELECAM is not strict and dispassionate enough to dismiss complacent candidates, then, they will stand accused for colluding in what is already being termed “an electoral masquerade”.
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