Cameroon: Pre-electoral battle surfaces as candidate lists are rejected

 

On 28 March, the Supreme Court, sitting in place of the Constitutional Council, will begin hearing complaints filed by several political parties, including the CPDM, who want to compete for the election. Their lists were rejected by Elections Cameroon (Elecam) which is in charge of organising elections in the country. A 20 March statement from Elecam announced that 23 of the lists of candidates contesting the senatorial election had been rejected while 17 were retained. Not all the parties whose lists were rejected decided to petition so the Constitutional Council will start examining 15 appeals and has ten days to rule on the cases.

Three of the eight parties that had initially entered the race were booted out and surprisingly, six of the CPDM lists were among those rejected for various reasons. Among other reasons, the exclusions were due to poor compilation of files or application for the ballot by several factions of some political parties.

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