By DOH JAMES SONKEY
The Electoral Board of Elections Cameroon, Enow Abrams Egbe has revealed that after scrutiny, members of the Electoral Board retained 36 lists of candidates out of a total of 42 received for the Senatorial election come March 25, 2018.
Speaking at a press briefing organized by Elections Cameroon, ELECAM at the Yaoundé Multisport Complex last March 7, 2018, the Chairman of the Electoral Board of ELECAM, Enow Abrams Egbe explained that the 42 lists were submitted by some 9 political parties in Cameroon.
Mr Enow Abrams Egbe declared that after the examination of the various lists, they found five of the lists not fulfilling the required conditions set down in the law in force and were thus unanimously rejected by members of the Electoral Board of ELECAM.
Addressing the media in the presence of the Director General of Elections of ELECAM, Abdoulaye Babale, Electoral Board Chair, Enow Abrams Egbe equally indicated that the opposition Social Democratic Front, SDF party decided to withdraw its list of candidates in the Centre region.
He further explained that the five disqualified and rejected lists are candidates from two political parties in five regions of the country. Consequently, three lists of the UPC in the Adamawa, North and South West were knocked out by ELECAM while two lists from the SDF in the East and Far North were equally thrown out.
The validated lists by ELECAM projects the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, the CPDM party and its alliance the National Union of Democracy and Progress, NUDP are the only two parties to run in all the ten regions, while the leading opposition party SDF that currently has senators in two regions will contest in five regions (North West, South West, Littoral, West and Adamawa).
Three opposition political parties will run in one region each. CDU and UMS will compete in the West region while the FSNC will run in the North region and the UDP will run only in the North West region.
The ANDP will compete in four regions including the South, Littoral, South West and Far North while the UPC, one of the oldest parties in Cameroon will contest in two regions (Centre and Littoral).