Un Monde Avenir: « Je vote, donc j’existe !!! » Campaign to mobilize citizens to claim their right to vote

Projet: Education au Droit Electoral et Accompagnement des Citoyens dans les Processus Electoraux au Cameroun (EDE/ACPE).

Project: Education for the Right to vote and the support of citizens in the electoral process in Cameroon.

Although Cameroon’s party system experienced quite a flourish in 1990 when the multi-party system was reinstalled and many new parties were founded, the political elite surrounding President Paul Biya remained lethargic. While there actually is a wide spectrum of political parties, most of them are only active regionally, suffer from unstable membership and lack financial and organizational resources. The governing RDPC (Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais), which arose from the single political party that ruled the country for 30 years, is still the one of the few parties having sufficient financial resources and the power to mobilize their electors. Its predominance is undermining the pluralism and inhibits an actual change in the party system. Being governed by the same President now for 30 years leaves many citizens indifferent towards politics and unwilling to participate in the political process. The necessity to empower the civil society to legitimate political leadership is one of the big challenges for NGOs like 1MA.

In January 2011 Un Monde Avenir started the project EDE/ACPE to actively promote and support citizens to participate in the electoral process of the following 12^th presidential elections in October 2011. While official statistics present the voting participation at a level of 65%, the independent election observers claim it to be only at 40%.

But the EDE/ACPE project wasn’t finished with the presidential election as 1MA continued to promote the participations of citizens and their right to vote on a national and local level since then. To motivate more people to cast their ballot, the initiative is focused on three main goals: The formation of the election observers, accompanying the citizens at the electoral process and the scrutiny at the election day. In the last months 1MA organized meetings in the ten regions of Cameroon and educated all together 700 Volunteers to observe the electoral process and accompany the population to the inscription process of the following local and parliamentary elections that started yesterday (02/10/2012). But, facing financial shortcomings as the UNDEF (The United Nations Democracy Fund) is only supporting the project until the end of 2012, there will be no remaining capacities to actually execute the scrutiny of the 2013 elections. Hence, it is even more important to actively support the inscription process and mobilize as many electors as possible until the end of the year.

For more information on Cameroon’s party system, its changes and functioning, feel invited to look for the reports on this topic published by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung named „Parteien und Parteiensysteme in Afrika” (available in german via www).