Challenges To Surmount

As the elections management body, Elections Cameroon (ELECAM) strives to attain its target of registering some 10 million citizens, vis-à-vis the population, there are some speed brakes along the process. Some of the challenges are related to voter’s apathy, security problems, cultural believes and the limited participation of youths and women in the process. At the close of electoral registers on August 31, 2023 in accordance with the provisions of the Electoral Code, a declaration of the Director General of Elections at ELECAM, Dr. Erik Essousse indicates that some 368,119 new persons were registered. This brings the total, pending revisions of the electoral registers, to 7,523,184, representing an increase of 29,743 new voters. This number is below its expected target of 10 million. That said, stakeholders need improved mobilisation to attain set objectives.
Voter Apathy 
This refers to a situation where persons of voting age do not participate in the electoral process. That is, they are not interested in public elections. And unfortunately, the majority of those who are lukewarm in the process are women and the youths, despite their numerical strength. In an interview with the Chairperson of the Electoral Board of ELECAM, Enow Abram Egbe following the renewal of his mandate on July 12, 2022, he noted that, the greatest problem they are facing is voter apathy. “We observed that the voter apathy is as a result of the fact that most people think ELECAM is not independent, which is not the case. We are building confidence in the minds of the population. We took an oath before the Supreme Court before God and man to serve the nation with impartiality and this is exactly what we are doing. Elections Cameroon is an independent institution,” he said in the interview. In addition, opposing timetables paves the way to voter apathy. That is, students and employers (skilled and unskilled labour) of voting age are either in school or at the jobsite during registration hours. They close practically at the same time, making turnout low. There are also people who register, but do not participate in the voting process maybe as a result of geographical mobility of labour. 

Security Challenges 
The Boko Haram insurgencies in the Far North Region and the socio-political tensions in the North West and South West Regions are not making things easy for stakeholders in the electoral process. The equipment of the elections management body are destroyed and the population flees for safety. This makes movement and other daily activities difficult, amongst them registration of people of voting age. In the midst of the cacophony, documents are destroyed and reconstituting them is usually another process which is time consuming. Simply put, peace and war are two opposite sides of a coin that can either make or mare the electoral process. And with three regions being affected with security issues, slows down the registration process. This undoubtedly has an effect on the overall outcome. 

Lukewarm Participation Of Some Stakeholders
It is true that ELECAM is t...