Election Day

Note: Originally written on 7/22

7/22 is the day of national elections in Cameroon. There are 51 political parties. Wow!
Paul Biya is currently the President. He has been president since 1982.
The country is very excited about the elections. Their elections are held on Sunday.
Businesses that are normally open on Sunday are closed today.

Right now I'm looking at Cameroonian television coverage of the election.
The president and his wife just cast their votes. There was
mass excitement among the people to see them vote. There was coverage all morning.
After the president voted, full scale coverage ended :-)
I've been told that the ruling party stays in power mainly because of government workers. They secure their jobs by supporting
the status quo. That's the reason the President and his party have stayed in power for so long.

What I don't understand is the term limits issue in Cameroon. I need to ask how the president has justified
his many terms.

The newscasters continually urged Cameroonians to vote and exercise their democratic
right to vote. I'm impressed to see how attentive the young people are to the elections. They are glued to the television. Last night I overheard a conversation among them. One of the children asked one of the older ones if he was planning to vote. His response was "Yes, I'm supposed to vote." En masse the other children scolded him and SHOUTED you shouldn't say you're supposed to vote,
but that you're GOING TO VOTE. He had to assure them that he'd be voting.

The election process is peaceful in Cameroon, but of course not perfect.
Some younger voters were frustrated because they couldn't find their names on the voting list or their voting card had unexplainedly expired. (Sound familiar to you folks in Ohio and Florida!) They had international observers to monitor the elections. I found that funny. I agree with Jimmy Carter. We need international monitors in the US, not just in foreign countries. One other observation-- the children, as well as the adults were distressed that only 600,000 out of two million people in Douala ( the second largest city in Cameroon) were registered to vote. They were genuinely disturbed that the folks there were not more actively
engaged in the voting process. (I'll have to check, but I suspect percentage wise these are better numbers than some places in the US.)

Voting ends at 6pm.

Update: The election results indicate that the ruling party remains.