ELECAM & urgency for digitalisation.

With the presidential election of 2025 already promising fireworks as both potent contestants in the ruling party and opposition prepare, there is the need to ensure transparency, free, fair and credible poll to prevent the violence that traditionally accompanies flawed elections. 

Elections Cameroon, ELECAM, is not unaware of that, which may explain why on Tuesday it organised a “Democracy Forum,” with the theme: “Digital and elections” with the collaboration of  the United Nations Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Central Africa, UNCHD-CA .

Together with some stakeholders, they brainstormed on digitalisation of the electoral processes in order to foster democracy in the country.

According to ELECAM’s Board Chair, Dr Enow Abrams Egbe, most election management bodies across the world are moving from the past manual approach to digitally-managed elections.

He said to align itself with the digitalisation of electoral processes, ELECAM has taken the challenge to meet international standards, which render election management easier, more credible and acceptable by all stakeholders.

“The advantages are manifold as results will be gotten earlier, there’s more room for objectivity, and people will accept the results quickly because people start suspecting that there are a lot of problems when results delay,” the ELCAM Board Chair said.

He further explained that ELECAM had already engaged the pioneer phase of digitalisation of electoral procedure in the country with potential voters handed voters’ cards through digital registration process. 

He admitted that once the digitalisation of the electoral processes are completed, it will boost the positive image of the country and encourage potential voters to enroll and actively participate in future elections.

“We have invited the human rights centre to come here so that we can talk about it and see how we can get everybody on board as the ELECAM Motto is: "lnclusive and transparent elections."

We think that with digitalisation, we will get everybody on board faster," Abrams Egbe added.

The Guardian Post congratulates the Board Chair of ELECAM and the United Nations Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Central Africa, for organising such a forum to highlight the importance of digitalisation in the electoral process in Cameroon where it lags behind when compared to other African countries.

Digital technology, as everyone knows, brings greater efficiency in many walks of life, and elections are no exception. Various research studies have established that online databases hugely facilitate the task of creating and managing accurate and up-to-date electoral rolls, thus preventing fraud in the form of multiple voting.

The difficulty of updating and cross-checking paper-based electoral rolls heightens the risk of including deceased voters or multiple records of the same persons, creating opportunities for electoral fraud. 

By contrast, digital registers are more manageable, create accurate voter registers and eliminate delays in vote counting and declaration of results. 

We are delighted that ELECAM has recognised the necessity to fully digitalise the country's electoral system.

As the UNCHD-CA’s Regional Adviser on Democracy and Human Rights, Abdoulaye Traore, said at Tuesday's forum in Yaounde, digitalising elections also promotes democracy, human rights and liberty, which constitute pillars of electoral process in Cameroon. 

“If we look back, we will realise that the accompaniment, support in terms of human rights and democracy that we have assigned to this institution, have made us to understand the quality of results,” Traore said.

He also saluted the measures being put in place by ELECAM to render the election procedures completely digitalised as well as inviting all stakeholders to actively participate in efforts to foster democracy and credible elections in the country.

It was the third of such forum which is justification that the electoral process in the country remains far from credibility. It takes 15 days, for instance, to declare the winner of a presidential election in Cameroon. 

But Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world, held its presidential poll on Saturday and with some 3.3 million people of its 8.4 million population voting. The results were out within three days.

On the contrary, Cameroon, with a population of more than 28,000, saw only 3,590, 681 voting at the 2018 presidential poll! This, of course, is indicative of the flaws in the Cameroon electoral system. 

Some of the disfranchising and sham tactics are the exclusion of youth from age 18 and 19, recognition of only the results of ELECAM at polling stations and refusal to use single ballots. 

Many, if not all the shortcomings will be eliminated with a complete digitalisation of the election process. ELECAM has expressed the need and urgency not only in one or two fora but in three. 

It is however only the CPDM government that can amend the electoral law, which, in the first place is said to favour its candidates as it is. 

We, at The Guardian Post for the interest of avoiding electoral violence and promotion of human rights, urge the Biya regime to completely digitalise the electoral platform before the next municipal, legislative and presidential polls.