Peterkins Manyong
4 July 2008
opinion
Albatross. Only a few Cameroonians knew this name or cared about it until 2004. That was when a plane was bought bearing it.
Albatross is the name of a bird in a poem titled "The Rime of The Ancient Mariner" by ST Coleridge, a leading Romantic poet.
When the Ancient Mariner set out on his journey, the bird started following his ship. Out of mischief he shot the Albatross which from the calm that preceded its killing was a bird of good omen.
But instead of falling into the sea, the dead bird hung on the sailor's neck. This wicked act was the beginning of a series of misfortunes that befell the Ancient Mariner. The sea turned red, there was a violent storm and the ship was on the verge of sinking. Then the sailor started reciting certain words (a prayer) that expressed his remorse.
After that, the storm ceased, and it rained for the first time and he could admire the water snakes around him.Since 1990, 14 years before the ill-fated plane, also bearing that name, was bought, Cameroon has been under the spell of a democratic Albatross initiated not by the shooting of any bird, but by that of six young Cameroonians killed in cold blood during the re-launch of multiparty politics in Cameroon.
Cameroonians have done everything short of going to war, to bring about democratic change.On Friday, June 27, President Biya once more demonstrated that democracy in Cameroon is really an albatross, which he would gladly shake off. This was when he sent a bill to his rubberstamp parliament to the effect that the appointment of ELECAM members be postponed for six months.
The bill, like all those he sends was passed by acclamation.The President's action was no surprise to those who remember just how reluctant he was to create the organ. Not only did he delay the process, he dribbled Commonwealth officials pressing on him to create a truly independent body to monitor elections.
The final creation of ELECAM, to use biblical terms, was like giving a hungry child a stone or a fish in place of the bread he asked for. The organ was a far cry from the independent election organ demanded. Its members are to be appointed by Biya himself and it has no financial autonomy.
In postponing ELECAM, Biya excused himself that he needs more time to put the structures in place. What has the regime been doing for the last 18 months of its existence that is only possible to put its structure in place now?
From all indications, Biya is afraid that ELECAM can embarrass him just like the election management body in Senegal which became more independent than its creator, Abdou Diouf, had wished. Biya's behaviour lends credence to press speculations that he is surreptitiously planning to conduct snap presidential elections in 2009.
Other press reports allege that he is putting in place strategies to conduct senatorial and regional elections within the six months that he is planning to put in place ELECAM. He is more comfortable with NEO which most Cameroonians consider a toothless bulldog. With MINATD being in control of the electoral process, a CPDM crushing victory in all three elections is a foregone conclusion.
All such speculations fall in the logic of Biya's political philosophy of keeping power at all cost. Biya's surrogates like Achidi Achu, Fidelis Nji Atanga and S.N Tamfu, who say the President may not stand elections in 2011, are like the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth who prophesy one thing while implying another. They said Biya would not contest elections in 2011 but this did not mean that he could not do it earlier. .
Concerning Senatorial and Regional elections, it would be absurd if Biya still fears its outcome. The Constitution states that those to vote are Municipal councillors and Members of Parliament. He had already ensured a crushing majority in the 2007 polls. That is to say he rigged three elections in one, or rather four elections in two, since the July 22, 2007, event (considered the most "transparently rigged" in Cameroon's political history) was a dual election.
Except there is a rebellion in the CPDM he doesn't need to rig the Senatorial and Regional elections to win. Rodcod Gobata was very prophetic when he insinuated in 1991 that we still had a long way to go from "La Democratie" (Biya's version of democracy) to genuine democracy.
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