Ruling party increases its strength in parliament

Cameroon’s Supreme Court has ordered fresh legislative elections in nine constituencies because of irregularities committed during polls held on 30 June. The court made the announcement on Friday as it gave the results of the polls. Of the 180 seats in parliament, 163 seats have been decided. The remaining 17 are in the nine constituencies. Complaints on the municipal elections, held concurrently with the legislative polls, were yet to be decided by the Court. The election saw the ruling Rassemblement démocratique du peuple camerounais (RDPC - Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement) increase its seats in parliament from 116 to 133. Its nearest rival, the Social Democratic Front (SDF) now has 21 legislators, down from 43. Nineteen of the SDF’s seats are from its traditional stronghold, the English-speaking Northwest Province, home to party leader John Fru Ndi. The Union démocratique du Cameroun (UDC - Democratic Union of Cameroon) has retained its five seats in the legislature. All are in Noun, the home district of its president, Adamou Ndam Njoya. The Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC - Cameroon Peoples’ Union) has increased its tally from one to three, while two other small parties each lost the single seat they had in parliament. The biggest casualty of the election has been the Union nationale pour la démocratie et le progrès (UNDP - National Union for Democracy and Progress). It had won 13 seats in the 1992 legislative elections and 68 in 1997, when it concluded a joint-government agreement with the ruling RDPC. This time around, it won one seat, although it hopes to improve its tally during the upcoming partial elections. Observers blame the party’s poor showing on its participation in the RDPC-led government, which grassroots militants have asked UNDP leader Bello Bouba Maigari to end. The Supreme Court rejected the results from the nine constituencies because of irregularities such as false results. In one constituency, West Benue, the election was annulled because the winning RDPC list included a traditional ruler who had had multiple convictions, and for whom two arrest warrants were reportedly pending. The court had received 127 petitions, including one calling for the withdrawal of five seats in one department, Menoua, that went to the RDPC. The Supreme Court turned down that request on a technicality. The opposition said it should have based its decision on statements by party supporters who said they had helped bus voters to polling stations. They had made the disclosure at a press conference because, they said, they had not been paid the FCFA 60,000 (about US $90) promised to them. The secretary-general of the SDF, Tazoacha Asongany, commented in the state-owned Cameroon Tribune newspaper that he was disappointed by the decision of the court. He said the polls had been marred by massive fraud in all constituencies and that the Supreme Court’s decisions seemed selective. ”It’s a distribution of seats designed to appease the opposition,” he claimed. However, RDPC Deputy Secretary-General Gregoire Owona, who is also a minister within the presidency, denied this, saying people should not allow themselves to be influenced by rumours of arrangements. The by-elections for the 17 seats have to be held within two months. In the meantime, the 163 other legislators are due to take up their seats on 30 July, when the 2002-2007 parliament holds its first session.