The African Union (AU) has expressed satisfaction on Monday with the way in which Cameroon’s presidential elections took place According ...
The African Union (AU) has expressed satisfaction on Monday with the way in which Cameroon’s presidential elections took place
According to a statement issued by the AU, surveys were attached at least in a preliminary assessment to the principles of democracy and transparency stipulated in national and continental laws.
The text reviews the statements made about the issue by Kwesi Ahoomey-Zunu, head of AU observation mission for the elections. About 6.6 million people cast their votes amid the continuing tension in the territories where armed separatists are fighting to establish a new nation called ‘Ambazonia’.
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| African Union Pleased with Elections in Cameroon |
The country’s 85-year-old president, Paul Biya, is running for a seventh term in the central African country where anglophone rebels have been fighting for secession from the francophone majority, prompting a fierce crackdown by government forces.
A victory likely would come with a weakened mandate for Biya as many residents of the troubled English-speaking Southwest and Northwest regions have fled elsewhere. By law, voters can only cast a ballot in the community where they are registered.
More than 200,000 people have been displaced because of violence by both separatists and the military in those regions, with many towns simply abandoned.
The separatists had vowed that no political campaigns or elections would take place in their country, which they call “Ambazonia.” Only one political rally was held in Buea, but none of the candidates, including the incumbent president, dared to meet voters in the volatile region.
Most of people remaining in the regions’ largest towns, Bamenda and Buea, were too scared to go out to cast their votes. Gun battles went on for hours in parts of the two towns.
“We have been on the floor since the morning due to the gunshots. I felt like the bullets were passing all over my head. Now I know I cannot vote again,” said Allen Fru, an electrician in Bamenda
Polls closed at 1700 GMT after a mostly calm day of voting, but a drive by secessionists to disrupt the election meant not all polling stations were open in English-speaking regions, where voter turnout was low due to security fears.
Tallying the nationwide vote could take up to two weeks.
Victory for Biya, who has ruled for 36 years, would give him a seventh term. The only current African president to have ruled longer is Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
For the last two years violence has been escalating in the English speaking north-west and south-west regions of the country with reports of atrocities against civilians being carried out by the Cameroonian military as well as by separatist groups.
The violence has claimed the lives of at least 420 civilians, 175 members of the security forces and an unknown number of separatists, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank.
Sunday’s elections is the 11th presidential election since Cameroon’s independence in 1960.
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