The year 2024 sees a capacity-building program for Elections Cameroon staff. The agenda had also seen discussions at the fourth extraordinary session of the Electoral Council for the year on December 20, 2020, in Yaoundé. According to Elecam, this vast program aims to meet the strategic and operational objectives of the year, though they have yet been made public.
Word going round indicates that the focus of this training is to sensitize staff on the various steps of the voter registration process, especially the stage relative to the taking of fingerprints which is a requirement. The same word indicates that the aim is to avoid rejection in 2025 that could have pew issues waiting regard full with fingerprint defects.
A reported 12,000 registrations were rejected because of illegible fingerprints earlier this year. This was criticized by Maurice Kamto, president of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC), the chief political opponent of President Paul Biya. Declaring himself a candidate for the presidential elections the current year, he believed these rejections would eliminate potential party activists from the electoral rolls. The reason for this assertion is that the affected zones were believed to be party strongholds led by him: the departments Mfoundi (Yaoundé), Wouri (Douala) and West Region.
In the meantime, this scandal was dismissed by the announcement that the 12,000 rejected persons would be re-included in the electoral lists this year, with the responsibility on the few who carry out registration to find all the people in question to take their fingerprints once again.
So far, Elecam has offered no indication of the timing of its staff training program. And even less has it revealed which manner in which the capacity building is to be carried out.