Six days gone into campaigns for the first-ever election of senators in Cameroon, most observers are still keen on knowing where the four political parties involved want to take the country to. Firstly, the specificity of the elections calls for a special approach to the campaign. The exercise targets municipal councillors, but they are not found in one location. Secondly, electoral messages in the country are not often based on specific development agendas. Multi-party politics in the country has over the years given room for much wrong language and even invectives during election campaigns; making it look as if politicians had run out of ideas and were only left with their personal frustrations.
Decades down the road, Cameroonians are not only being introduced to a new form of election exercise, but they are expecting that the election campaign should reflect the importance being attached to the new Upper House. Obviously, several media organs have taken interest in the campaign as usual and the National Communication Council has stepped in to announce the time allocated to the four political parties involved.
Yet, what many concerned citizens would logically want to hear on such airtime will be the action plan that the political parties have for Cameroon. How they want to make the country better and stronger. It may be preposterous to say here that any clear options are known to the rest of the people. May be not just because people tend to understand the campaign message on the basis of their personal experiences, but also value judgement in political matters is often blinded by factors far remote from nation-building.
Even more, the approach that the political parties have chosen is door-to-door campaigns. Such a method appears most realistic given that not all the political parties have councillors where they are looking for votes. The Social Democratic Front, SDF, party for instance, has no councillors in the South Region. But in the West Region where they have some 100-odd councillors, they have an uphill task convincing the UDC, for example, to allow their councillors vote otherwise given that the UDC is also in the contest.
Also, the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement that has councillors throughout the country could not respect the law in all the regions. As such, the CPDM has to run for Senate seats only in eight regions. Some officials of the party have publicly stated that the party will in due course give indications to their councillors on which party to vote for in regions where the CPDM has not been authorised by Elections Cameroon to run.
The novelty in the current election of Senators necessitates knowing the political programmes that the parties are proposing to the electors, especially measures to convince councillors from one political party to vote for another party. It is only when such an approach is made effective that the weight of the electoral process can best be evaluated. This is also important because politicians have often been known to toe party lines even when the interest of the nation would have dictated a different line of action. May be as the election campaign intensifies, those following up the process will be able to better say where the campaign exercise is leading the country to. It is only through such meaningful analysis that the full meaning of the election of Senators can be brought out to the Cameroonian public.
