Editorial: 2025 elections; Preparations heat up!.

He said: “I urge each and every one of us to maintain the same enthusiasm and team spirit, bearing in mind that the elections of 2025 are already knocking on our doors”.

He said ELECAM will soon be deploying teams to all diplomatic and consular services of the nation across the globe for voter registration exercises. 

Dr. Enow Abrams explained that technicians will fix registration kits that have problems and conduct training for newly appointed focal point staff. 

He saluted Cameroonians in the diaspora for their patience and gave the assurance that everything will be done for them to enroll and exercise their voting rights.

To further put all stakeholders on the same page, Dr Enow Abrams said the second edition of regional consultations with other actors will be organised.

“The positive feedback from the previous event is ample proof that it was the right decision to bring together all the stakeholders in the electoral process around the same table,” he said. 

He equally appreciated other actors who have remained constructive in supporting ELECAM in its activities. He said it was the responsibility of all citizens to contribute to the building of democracy in Cameroon.

"...From the documents and reports submitted by the Director General of Elections, it can be noticed that there have been great strides in the domain of voter registration during the first quarter,” adding that figures show “a crescendo trend all over the national territory," he added.

Already in the pre-election year, he said all actors are mobilised and thus there is no room for lapses.

“There is no more time to lose, because the 2025 electoral cycle is already on the horizon. From now on, all our efforts will be focused on the success of the next electoral cycle,” he assured.

He tasked collaborators to double efforts to ensure that everything is put in place for the success of future elections. Through unity, he added, all obstacles would be overcome and Cameroonians will be served credible, peaceful and transparent elections.

Not just ELECAM is in the effervescence of elections preparations. The media have been agog with reports of turning the 39th anniversary of the ruling CPDM last month into campaigns for the 2025 presidential polls due in October or earlier if they are precipitated as being speculated.

The major opposition parties, in their own fizzy of preparation, launched Political Alliance for Change led by Hon. Jean-Michel Nintcheu, and the Political Alliance for Transition in Cameroon headed by Prof. Olivier Bile.

But in a swift reaction, the Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, in release on March 12, proscribed the alliances as "illegal".

The ministerial fiat drew both local and international criticisms, given that the ruling party has an alliance of Presidential Majority while another group coalition known as G20, which backed President Paul Biya's candidacy at the 2018 elections, were never banned.

Human Rights Watch, which was one of the critics, wrote that: “The government’s move against these coalitions shows how the Cameroonian authorities are moving to close down space for the opposition and for public debate ahead of the 2025 presidential elections”.

As the ELECAM Chair said, all Cameroonians and stakeholders in the electoral process should put hands on deck to ensure free, transparent and credible elections.

That is the prayer of The Guardian Post to avoid the crackdown which followed the 2018 presidential poll with claims of massive rigging and "stolen" victory.

ELECAM is doing everything within its powers to get Cameroonians registered. 

In places like the North West and South West regions, where separatist vandals are notorious for forcing elections boycott, voter registration cards are being asked before compatriots are attended to in some state offices.

It is meant to encourage massive voter registration, which remains very low in the country, considering that Cameroon, with a population of 27.8 million people, had just 7,523,184 electors as of last year. This is partly due to the fact that the voting age begins at 20, instead of 18, which is the universal standard in democratic countries.

While ELECAM, the opposition and the ruling party gird their loins ahead of the 2025 elections, which have been described by the IMF as embroiled in "uncertainty" and even perils, they should have in mind that flawed elections make violence inevitable.

The country, at the risk of repeating violence, Dr Enow Abrams said, needs a free, transparent and credible elections. But has the ground been prepared for them?

Why does a country like Senegal take less than a week for its Constitutional Council to declare the result of a presidential poll while that in Cameroon takes 15 days?

Why does Cameroon continue to use multiple ballots instead of one to reduce the time results are compiled and cut cost at a time of austerity? Why disenfranchise the youth of 18 and 19 who should be groomed as leaders of the future?

ELECAM cannot answer the questions. But the government can provide the solution by amending the Electoral Code in tandem with the recommendations of the various international elections observers who are also "stakeholders" in Cameroon's democratisation process.

The sooner that is done the better for the country's unity and avoidance of violence traditionally triggered by flawed elections.