The Director General of Elections at Elections Cameroon, ELECAM, Dr Erik Essousse says calls for massive registration of voters which he terms as “agitations on the social networks are not a bad idea and ELECAM does not have a problem with it but we want to work in a professional manner”. To him working in a professional manner entails registering Cameroonians who are at the age of 20 years and in the conditions stipulated by the law. He also revealed the imminent beefing up of electoral machines by the electoral body to boost its capacity and output especially in the production of cards which had stalled for some time now. Dr. Erik Essousse was responding to journalists’ preoccupations from selected media organs amongst which was The SUN newspaper last April 29, 2024 in Yaounde. Here is what the Director General of Elections said in the full interview transcribed by The SUN Bureau Chief for the Centre, East and South regions, Doh James Sonkey.
At a time when there are increasing calls for Cameroonians to register massively on the electoral register, has ELECAM put in place any special measures on the eve of these elections?
Thank you very much. You know that ELECAM is an organization that organizes elections around the national territory and abroad also for the presidential election. We use to organize registration by our teams in the fields with ELECAM branches in all the sociologies. Thus we have our mobile teams which go around their competences to register all the persons who have the age to register on the electoral roll. So we continue to do the same work every day from Monday to Friday from 7:30am to 3:30pm but we can go up 6 pm during such work days. Though the weekends are not authorized by the law, we can carry out registration on Saturdays if there are some cases we can address.
In the same vein, some political parties are complaining about the inadequacy of ELECAM’s enrolment kits and even their insufficiency. What is your take on this issue? What about the renewal of the biometric equipment announced by ELECAM?
Thank you. What I can say about ELECAM enrolment kits is that, there are first generation kits since 2013 which are of course very good ones acquired by the first Director General of Elections, Sani Tanimou. They are giving us total satisfaction and are continuously being used in the field today. We also have second generation kits acquired in 2018 which have given us some trouble because their performance is not giving us satisfaction. We are associating the two kits and that is why there is registration of voters each year on the field because there is annual revision of the electoral register from January 2 to August 31. Our technicians are permanently repairing the kits which are making some people to think that the kits have breakdown. Knowing that we want our enrolment kits to be the base of all registration, the government gave us the financial means so that we can renew all our enrolment kits. And for us to get new reliable kits, we are working with our technicians and our partners so that we can get kits that are just like the first ones. But since it is technical, we are taking our time to work on it so that by the beginning of next year, we can have the new kits.
Some CPNR supporters who are members of joint commissions have pointed out that people who were enrolled since 2020 are still to receive their voter cards. What is the reason for this situation?
Yes that is true; ELECAM had a problem with the printing machine that issues voters cards. And that too, the government has given us the financial means and ELECAM has already commanded the machine and it is at the Port and we are negotiating with Customs service so that we take it from there and bring to our service. When we will receive it we will need to install it technically and when that is over, we can then use the machine to henceforth produce voters’ cards.
Isn’t this campaign to encourage Cameroonians to register massively on the electoral register using social networks a great opportunity for ELECAM to boost its figures? What digital strategy has ELECAM put in place to make the most of it?
I thank that all these agitations as I can call it on the social networks inviting Cameroonians to massively enrol on our electoral register is not a bad idea. ELECAM does not have a problem with it but we want to work in a professional manner. And to work in a professional manner, we want to register Cameroonians who are at the age of 20years and in the conditions stipulated by the law. And those conditions are: having the Cameroonian nationality, enjoying his or her civil and political rights, and must be 20 years of age. We do a lot of communication through social networks such as twitter, facebook, whatsapp and other modern tools that enable us to communicate with the population of voting age to come and enrol their names on the electoral register. Political parties should bring their militants or sympathizers to register and they should make sure that the law is respected from Monday to Friday. But we should not expose ELECAM staffs to work even on Sundays because it is unlawful. We thank the press because you are our mouthpiece in the fields.
Some citizens who want to register have not been able to have access to ELECAM sites. How do you communicate on the location of ELECAM’s 360 council branches, as well as the schedule of visits by ELECAM’s mobile teams?
We communicate enormously calling on citizens of voting age to come and register. You of the media are informing us that there are people queuing up to register. ELECAM does not have a problem to register those who are willing to do so. And our 360 council branches are well known in the regions. We need to make sure that when there is a weekly programme for field tour of our staffs in accordance with political parties and civil society organizations. These programmes are known because we have always been doing this for the past years. We must remain very professionals in the electoral processes so that everything should go on in total serenity. I can tell you that since the beginning of the year, ELECAM has registered more than 200 000 new voters just in four months. This is what I want to raise, the fact that we are attracting people to come and register, we are registering the same people over and over. We can tell you that we have registered more than 200 000 new voters and after cleaning the electoral register we can realize that we registered on 50 000 voters meanwhile there was much enthusiasm during the registration process. Let us go professionally so that we can register those that merit it that is why very soon when the printing machine will be available, we shall print and distribute voter cards to put an end to all of this trouble.
With regard to Elections Cameroon teams that are in the field even at weekends, is this an instruction from hierarchy? If not, what is your position on the matter?
I said one week ago that, we are only enrolling in our branches and hotspots in the field. I do not want to see ELECAM staffs in churches on Sundays because it is a day set aside to praise God, to pray etc. So, if you see any ELECAM staff on Sundays, know that it is not an order of the Director General of Elections. They are supposed to register people from Mondays to Fridays as I have said earlier and Saturdays are exception for particular cases not more.
In the run up to the 2025 presidential election, what is the situation regarding the registration of Cameroonians living abroad?
Oh yes the question of the Diaspora is very pertinent as seen on the social media networks. We are organizing this aspect of our work. We could have been in the Diaspora at the very beginning of the year but for our kits and we needed to repair them in order to be sure that by going to the Diaspora, we will not have any problem. Now that it has been done, our teams are already in the Diaspora. I even discussed with Cameroon Ambassador in Brussels to tell him that agitations of citizens should be stopped because our teams are already in the field. The ones of Paris and South Africa also told me the teams are already in their countries for work to start. That is to tell you that registration has been launched in the Diaspora. We shall make sure that everything goes on well in the Diaspora, that is, only proven Cameroonians will register and to do that they must show proof of their Cameroonian nationality, his or her consular card, a passport or a residence permit showing that he or she is actually living in that territory. The law says that any person living abroad must respect all the conditions stipulated by the law. So, we need to be precise so that we should not be dragged into any confusion. That is why we want to ensure our citizens in the Diaspora that they will be registered once they are proven to be Cameroonians.
And finally, what is the current statistics since the launch of the 2024 revision?
I told you that we are more 200 000 new voters registered since the beginning of this year. In that figure, youths occupy 148 000. You see that in just four months, we have very good figures. We are going to continue to reinforce our capacity and also we want to avoid duplicate. We say that the figures will be the same after the cleansing of the electoral roll.