Cameroon’s elections management body, ELECAM, has registered 368,119 new eligible voters between January and August this year, the institution’s Director General, Erik Essoussè, told journalists in Yaounde on September 1.
Most of the new voters are youth, women, persons with disabilities, and minority groups such as the Pigmies and the Mbororos. These were the targets of the campaign as Cameroon seeks to involve more youths, women, and minority groups in the political system.
ELECAM DG Erik Essoussè addressing journalists in Yaounde September 1, 2023 (Picture Credit ELECAM)
Erik Essoussè said the new voters were registered during ELECAM’s revision of its electoral registers, which was done through a nationwide campaign that ran from January 1 to August 31.
He said they recorded an 8.79 percent increase in voter registration as compared to last year, an indication that more Cameroonians may be taking an interest in political participation.
The over 300,000 new voters registered this year bring Cameroon’s total number of voters to 7,523,184. But this is still quite minimal for a nation of an estimated 25 million people. The number still falls short of ELECAM’s 10 million voter target by 2025.
During the 2018 presidential elections, the country registered 6.7 million voters, although less than half of that number voted. In 2019, ELECAM said its goal was to register at least 10 million Cameroonians on the electoral register by the next general elections in 2025.
The institution’s Director General said they were quite satisfied with the results they had obtained from the just-ended campaign.
The country’s Electoral Code mandates ELECAM to review the electoral rolls every year between January 1 and August 31.
During such a campaign, ELECAM admits new voters, expunges from the electoral list those who have died or have been imprisoned, corrects errors in voters’ information, and transfers names from one roll to another.
The percentage of women who are signing in for political participation remains far lower than that of men, despite increasing campaigns for women to engage in politics.
Out of the newly registered voters, ELECAM said 229,896 were men, while just 138,223 were women. Persons with disabilities numbered 444.
Women in Cameroon have been drumming for greater representation in the political system, including by being appointed to key positions, such as that of governor, that have traditionally been occupied only by men.
Cameroon is preparing for its sixth multiparty Presidential election in 2025, and it is one that many speculate might trigger a regime change in the country that has been ruled by one man, Paul Biya, since November 1982.
Opposition parties like the Cameroon Renaissance Movement have been clamouring for a revision of the Electoral Code, which they argue is designed to keep the incumbent regime in power.
Political activists have also been demanding that the minimum voting age, which now stands at 18, be reduced to allow more young people to participate in elections.
ELECAM DG Erik Essoussè addresses journalists in Yaounde on September 1, 2023 (Picture credit: ELECAM)
