I might be a member of the ruling party….. unknowingly

It’s that time of the year again in my beloved country Cameroon. For those who don’t know and those who are trying to act jaded and uninterested, let me inform and remind: it is parliamentary and municipal elections time and the D-day is Monday, September 30^th 2013.

And so?

Just like the USA or some other democratically-advanced country, Cameroon is constitutionally and socio-economically compelled to ‘organise’ elections every now and then. Cameroonians on their part are lucky and have a choice  between participating in this event or watching from the sidelines as egos and interests, conveniently labelled ‘parties’, wrestle and clash in the race to councils and the National Assembly.  The race is on and many Cameroonians are on the sidelines, not cheering, uninterestedly.

Many Cameroonians are jaded

Despite an almost vigorous attempt to get Cameroonians re-interested in the electoral process, ELECAM and the other stakeholders are disappointed with the feedback. After having cajoled many Cameroonians to register on the overhyped ‘Biometric’ register, they have discovered just how unappealing politics and its affiliates – like elections- now seem in the eyes of most Cameroonians: voter card withdrawal is still quite low generally. This has forced the authorities to concoct strategies to wow those who don’t feel the urge to withdraw their card: ‘distribution de proximité and ‘de masse’ they call it. (I am even tempted to think the  rumour that police officers will start asking for voters’ cards instead of I.D. cards has been allowed to flourish to encourage or coerce the reluctant to go fetch their cards.) Unfortunately these strategies haven’t really had the desired effect as many Cameroonians are jaded and don’t see the need to go fetch their cards (in case they registered) and vote.

Most are like Paul

In an informal discussion Paul, a Cameroonian I.T. expert who just returned home after 12 years spent in Sarko’s country, tells me he lives just 15 minutes away from his job site but each morning he needs 45 minutes to get to his job site; the other day his child was sick and when he took him to the hospital there was no doctor or hospital director as they had all gone campaigning, so why should he vote he asks me. I could have ignited a long intellectual tug of war with him on why he should go and vote but no, I didn’t. Who can blame him for not voting?

After suddenly discovering that rigour and moralisation have been overpowered by inertia, corruption and depravity, that even the precursors of hope have given up and are flirting with hitherto-sworn enemies, who can blame Cameroonians for preferring their daily hustles over withdrawal something they are not obliged to withdraw and which they think is nothing but a farce to perpetuate dynasties. The general conception is that the winner is already known and elections are nothing more than a formality. So why should Cameroonians should still go and vote despite all the odds really and perceptually staked against their voices actually being heard after the votes are counted?

Why Cameroonians should still vote anyway

1    Cameroonians should vote because abstention is indirectly voting for the ruling regime they are discontent with. All those I met aren’t voting because they think nothing will change: thus by deduction they are not CPDM militants. When they don’t they are indirectly enabling the CPDM to win because most CPDM militants will go vote in order to secure maybe a party T-shirt, beer, a buffet and something tangible, even if perishable, when all is said and done.

I am not a CPDM militant. I am no longer an SDF sympathiser. I am more of an independent and I thought of not voting but I will endeavour to vote due to the reason mentioned above and so that I can confidently demand better roads, jobs and what have you from whoever is elected since by the simple act of voting I become a stakeholder in the democratic process. What has apathy ever solved? Worst of all, I am voting because otherwise I would be a CPDM militant…unknowingly. ‘Tufia, over my dead body’.