BY ATIA TILARIOUS AZOHNWI
Going by result trends filtering into our newsroom, the CPDM got an elephant catch in the March 25 senatorial elections, winning mightily in all regions but the North West.
The CPDM is however battling to save one meagre seat at the level of the national vote counting commission in Yaoundé.
Going by statistics before the polls, analysts had it that the CPDM and SDF will share the seven seats in the election in the North West Region. The CPDM and the SDF are almost sharing the 1,088 councillors in the 34 councils. CPDM controls 19 councils with 565 councillors, while Ni John Fru Ndi’s SDF controls 15 councils with 522 councillors.
Great then was the surprise of the representative of the CPDM and the administration at the National Vote Counting Commission when it came out that the SDF will sweep all seven senate seats in the North West.
The SDF is said to have secured an absolute majority going by number of validly cast votes, 50.15%. If the calculations were to include the invalid votes, then the SDF would come out with a relative majority of 49.87%, in which case provisions of section 218 of the Electoral Code on the sharing of senate seats would have been evoked.
Had the SDF obtained a relative majority, then section 218(5&7) would have been used to give the CPDM one seat.
The national vote counting commission has decided to stick to the law, which means the CPDM will emerge from the North West empty handed.
The SDF representative at the commission refused to sign the result sheets, with his party seizing the Constitutional Council for succour.
Many are those who are yet to understand how the CPDM with 63 of the 70 senate seats in the country would be so desperate to get a meagre seat from the North West. The CPDM may not be the man carrying an elephant and fighting a cockroach with the have-nots. They may just be desperate to safe the face of Regina Mundi, North CPDM Senate list leader and politbureau member of the same party.
President Biya is expected to appoint 30 Senators who will complete Cameroon’s 100-person Senate, after the Constitutional Council would have declared the 70 who triumphed in the March 25 race.
According to Chapter 1, Section 3 of Law No 2006/005 of 14 July 2006 to lay down conditions governing the election of Senators:
“(1) each region shall be represented in the Senate by 10 (ten) senators 7 (seven) of whom shall be elected by indirect universal suffrage on a regional basis and 3 (three) appointed by decree of the President of the Republic.”
In 2013, apart from a few exceptions such as Dakolle Daissala, a long time ally of the President and leader of the MDR party, and Pierre Flambeau Ngayap of the UNDP, which is traditionally part of the “presidential majority,” practically all the appointed Senators came from the ruling CPDM party.
It is expected that at least three of the appointed senators will come from the SDF so that they can be able to form a senate group; at least10 senators are needed to form a group at the senate.