ELECAM should instill trust in citizens.

Credible media reports, confessions, testimonies from polling stations, and independent observers, are unanimous that there was massive fraud such as falsification of result sheets, inflation of voting numbers, stuffing of ballot boxes, ambulant voting, corruption and intimidation associated with the October 12 presidential election.

Those being indicted are in the unholy trinity; made up of ELECAM, Constitutional Council and Ministry of Territorial Administration, MINAT, all struggling to tame down growing public criticisms.

First, public opinion expressed on the streets and the media, accused ELECAM of unjustifiably eliminating Prof Maurice Kamto, considered as the main challenger to the incumbent, on grounds that the MANIDEM party that sponsored him had two candidates. 

Secondly, there were many accusations, some illustrated in videos, that ELECAM representatives were involved in stuffing ballot boxes and other malpractices.

In Alou Lebialem Division of the South West Region, for instance, there were allegations that because of insecurity, ballot boxes were carried to Dschang, West Region, for counting, instead of on the spot.

Also, in Njinikom, Boyo Division of the North West Region, an official of the ruling party resigned on grounds that he could not be an accomplice to inflation of the ballot, even though it was in favour of his party.

As an African proverb says: "It is one putrid cocoyam that spoils the entire fufu meal". But in this case, there are numerous such cocoyams. The approach by ELECAM shouldn't be that of silence or self-glorification.

It should be to evaluate the good, bad and ugly towards an electoral reform based on an epistemology of electoral justice and impartiality.

ELECAM, at its seventh statutory session in Yaounde on October 29, dedicated to an in-depth evaluation of challenges during the presidential election to chart a way forward said "the entire process met the standards of inclusion, transparency, legality and fairness" that it strives to uphold.

Earlier at a post-election briefing on October 17, 2025, ELECAM Chairperson, Dr Enow Abrams Egbe, sought to dispel any ambiguity on its performance, stating that: “The members of Elections Cameroon enjoy independence in the exercise of their functions. They receive no instructions in this regard from any political or administrative authority”. 

The probity of the 15 members may not be too contentious, but that of denial or defending the indefensible.  

There are many glaring defects in the electoral law, which are evidently beyond correction by ELECAM. Such iniquities that are public knowledge, include the use of multiple ballots, which trigger stuffing of boxes, disenfranchisement of youth aged 18 and 19, legal rejection of polling station results from representatives of political parties and the suspicious delay of results for 15 days.

Such overt defects, which have been raised by international election observers and credible opposition party leaders, make it impossible for ELECAM to beat its chest in election organisation.

Above all, there were over 30,000 polling stations. ELECAM doesn't have any number of staff close to that. It relies on temporary hands, some of whom are not apolitical, are mired in penury and prone to corruption. They could be easily manipulated to stuff ballot boxes and change results at polling stations.

ELECAM cannot vouch for their credibility to earn trust. It can only have the trust of the people, if it gets legislators to amend the law and correct the shouting loopholes that favour candidates of the ruling party in elections.

If ELECAM has representatives of mettle in polling stations, the warp logic that an opposition party cannot know its polling station results after the voting because it was not represented, will collapse like a pack of cards.

The ELECAM representative, in true neutrality, should be in a position to share such results to the absentees as a mark of transparency and fairness.

But as the situation is now, it would be foolhardy for ELECAM to dream that it instills trust in the electorate, especially given its partnership with MINAT, whose administrators are believed, rightly or wrongly, to be fanatical supporters of the ruling party.

Elections are intricate issues that can bring peace, unity and development to a country just as they can spark unprecedented debacles of killings, looting and destruction as observed in the October 12 presidential election.

The way forward for our beloved country to ensure future elections end in peace glossed with genuine ecstasy of celebration, not in masks by fraudulent winners, is for ELECAM to make a proposal to parliament to review the law, to meet with the tectonic shift in electoral architecture.

The Guardian Post acknowledges that there is no perfect electoral process in the world. Nonetheless, the crucial test is whether an election managing body is firmly anchored on the unambiguous, the African Union, AU, standards set out in the 2002 Durban Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa. 

It provides that "democratic elections should be conducted…by impartial, all-inclusive, competent accountable institutions staffed by well trained personnel and equipped with adequate logistics".

Does ELECAM meet those basic standards, when it has to bank on MINAT, whose partisanship is public knowledge, to transport electoral materials and ballot boxes?

The Guardian Post is not a pessimist, but in this situation, we regret to be, and urge for a sweeping electoral reform to instill confidence, not only in ELECAM, but in our nascent democratisation process needed for socio-economic and infrastructural development. 

This story was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3614 of Monday November 03, 2025