Senatorial election: Constitutional Council to examine petitions today.

A press release issued by the President of the Constitutional Council, Justice Clement Atangana, which was read over national radio, indicates that the hearing is due to begin at 10a.m.

The hearing, the release specified, will take place at the courtroom of the Constitutional Council at the Yaounde Conference Centre.

Worth noting is the fact that a total of eleven petitions were filed before the Constitutional Council by five political parties and candidates.

The candidacy documents, it should be said, were rejected by ELECAM when it published the list of candidates for the election February 7 over non-compliance with eligibility criteria set out by the Electoral Code alongside other reasons.

The petitions, it should be noted, fall in line with is Section 131 (1) of the Electoral Code.

The text, in the section cited above, states that “in case of objections or petitions relating to the rejection or acceptance of candidacies as well as those relating to the colour, initials or emblems chosen by a candidate, the Constitutional Council, before which the matter is brought, shall rule within no more than 10 days of the filing of the petition”.

Information gathered indicates that the Constitutional Council had received eleven petitions from five political parties. 

One of the petitions, we gleaned, was from the Cameroon Democratic Youth, JDC, whose list was rejected in the Centre Region. The party, from what we gathered, is praying the Constitutional Council to, in one of its two petitions, reinstate its list and disqualify the lists of the CPDM and the Cameroon Democratic Front, FDF, validated to run in the region by ELECAM.

The seemingly crisis-plagued Union of the Peoples of Cameroon, UPC, party is also reported to have tabled petitions.

Five of the party’s lists submitted to run in the Adamawa, Centre, Littoral, North West and the West Regions were rejected by ELECAM. The party is in the petition praying the Constitutional Council to reinstate all of its rejected lists. 

We further learned that a member of the ruling CPDM party also filed a petition, protesting over the decision of his party hierarchy for him to be an alternate candidate for the list in the West Region.

The party official is said to have been the head of the list that was sent in for consideration at the time by the party’s investiture team. The party official is said to be praying the Constitutional Council to reverse the situation for his name to be made the substantive candidate.

We further gathered that the National Union for Democracy and Progress, NUDP, and the Democratic Movement for the Defence of the Republic, MDR, also filed petitions.

After having carefully examined the various petitions, the Constitutional Council, will from today’s hearing pass its verdict concerning the various petitions.

It should be noted that decisions of the Constitutional Council are final and not subject to appeal.