Electoral Process - Stakeholders Work On Improvements

Elections Cameroon, ELECAM and the other stakeholders in Cameroon's electoral process on Monday, March 3, 2014 at the Yaounde Conference Centre, laid the groundwork for consolidated collaboration in order to improve the country's electoral process. They met within the framework of the fifth National Consultation Forum between Elections Cameroon and other stakeholders in the electoral process and discussed on the theme, "Evaluation of the 30 September, 2013 twin elections and perspectives for the year 2014."

The Electoral Board Chairman of ELECAM, Dr Fonkam Azu'u Samuel set the ball rolling by situating the context of the consultation meeting which comes after the 2013 Senate, legislative and municipal elections organized using biometric technology at the compilation phase of the electoral roll. For 2014, the institution continues with the revision of the electoral register using biometric technology within Cameroon and will do biometric recompilation of voters' register among the Diaspora. The work of all electoral stakeholders, he said will consist in carrying out sensitization of Cameroonians to register for future elections with the ultimate goal to increase the number of registered voters from the 5,481,226 in September 2013 twin legislative and municipal elections. Dr Fonkam Azu'u called for the full involvement of all stakeholders. On the part of ELECAM, he said, all is being put in place to ensure the smooth registration of people from all strata of the society. He also announced the setting up of structures to train ELECAM staff and stakeholders, as well as the commitment to effectively cater for members of Joint Commissions within the available means.

The September 30, 2013 twin elections whose conduct was evaluated served as a springboard for future joint actions to improve the electoral process. He said the biometric technology used during the registration took care of previous problems like double registration, fictitious registration, issuing and distribution of voters' cards. Dr Fonkam Azu'u said 90 per cent of the voters' cards were distributed and stated that uncollected ones being distributed. The stakeholders used the occasion to identify the achievements of the September 2013 twin elections that have to be preserved and make suggestions on how to improve the electoral process to guarantee more credible, accepted, free and fair future elections.