No Election Is Won Before Time!

It is disheartening to hear that at a time Cameroonians of voting age who effectively registered and are bracing up to massively go to the polls on October 12, 2025 to elect the President of the Republic for the next seven years, some media outlets are already spreading vain information on the outcome of the much-awaited polls. Regrettable!  Cameroon, as a State of law, has an electoral code which guides all election operations each time electors are convened to the polls. It is a process which must be carried to the end to know who triumphs.
Talking about the upcoming Presidential election, some 84 aspirants showed interest from the start in running for the country’s highest office. In line with the regulation in force, the Electoral Board of Elections Cameroon examined the different files and retained 13, dropping 71. Keen observers of the country’s political system would at least agree that this number was unprecedented. Some of the rejected candidates, still in line with existing legal instruments, filed petitions at the Constitutional Council, the highest jurisdiction in constitutional matters. It resulted in the rejection of one initially retained candidate, bringing the final number of candidates to 12. These are the eleven men and one woman who, on equal basis, will be beseeching voters when official campaigns open on September 27, 2025 to consider them for the top job. Politics, like any game, has its rules that must be respected in the country.
Playing an apologist for one of the rejected hopefuls, seeing him as only heavy weight that has the magic wand to turn things around, is to say the least, irrational. In fact, the   publication of Jeune Afrique predicting suicide in the country, just because of one person, is unacceptable. Manipulative, to say the least!   Coming out boldly to say his absence from the competition already gives one candidate victory is utterly deceptive. Common knowledge teaches that no election is won ahead of time, not even by the most popular. Experiences from countries whose democracy can be said to be older than that of Cameroon are telling enough that until elections hold and results proclaimed, no competitor can claim victory or failure, else, there would be no reason going in again when the victor and victim are known in advance.
Cameroonians, and the world at large, are certainly not oblivious of the 2016 Presidential election in the world’s economically powerful country, the United States of America. He who ended up occupying the White House for four years never won any pre-electoral debates. Even opinion polls did not at any moment place him ahead of his main rival. But when election was held, the results took the world by storm that he won. That is the unpredictability of elections all over the world. Cameroon is no exception and should not be presented as one.
Evidence is that the candidate and political party that put forth the candidacy of the Jeune Afrique already-declared winner of the upcoming Presidential election in Cameroon, are burning midnight candles, devising strategies to go meet the electors when the legal campaign period opens. This shows that they are conscious of the competitiveness of the election and attempting to play superiority could just signal doom for them.  No room for mistakes at all!
The 12 candidates seeking the electors’ approval to rule Cameroon have equal opportunities. Presenting a rejected aspirant as the only one who had the pedigree to challenge the incumbent is clearly an insult to the other candidates. It is pure distraction at a time all attention is focused on the upcoming campaign period during which the candidates or their supporters will crisscross the country with their political manifestoes. Cameroonians are politically matured enough to decide their fate themselves and will obviously vote based on the ability of the candidate to convince them. They have their daily problems and would give their...