Joe Dinga Pefok (Uncle Joe)
The Electoral Fraud By The Regime And Its Allies At Presidential Elections, Takes Place At The Divisional Vote Counting Commissions Headed By Designated Presidents Of HIGH COURTS. The National Vote Counting Commission Is Just There To Compile The Results, As Sent In By The 58 Divisional Vote Counting Commissions, While The Constitutional Council Proclaims Result Received From Vote Counting Commission.
Just like with the 2018 presidential election in Cameroon, the 2025 presidential election which held on October 12, ended with another scandalous story of stolen victory by the ruling CPDM and its allies that allegedly include the election organizing body, Elections Cameroon (ELECAM). There is the question as to whether the official result of the October 12, 2025 presidential election could have been different. The simple answer is NO. The current Electoral Code was not designed to ensure the organization of free, fair, transparent and thus credible election. This means that the official result of a presidential election conducted with the current Electoral Code, cannot be credible. Thus the official result of the October 12, 2025 presidential election could not have been different.
It should be noted that the current Electoral Law was adopted by the CPDM in 2012. When the draft bill of the Electoral Law was brought to the floor of the National Assembly in the 2012 March Session, opposition MPs, and even MPs of the UNDP that was then in alliance with the ruling CPDM, were unanimously opposed to it. They argued that the Electoral Code would not enable the organization of free, fair and transparent elections in the country. The CPDM however used its ‘crushing majority’ in the National Assembly, to push through the bill, which President Biya promulgated into the Electoral Law in April 2012 – Law No. 2012 /001 of 19 April, 2012.
The CPDM –Made Electoral Code
As aforementioned, the current Electoral Code that was adopted in 2012 by the CPDM cannot ensure the organization of free, fair and transparent election, especially in a presidential election. In the Electoral Code, there are semblances of democratic values, as seen in some Articles, but which are weakened or even destroyed by some other Articles that follow in the same Electoral Code. For example, Article 113 of the current Electoral Code (Law No. 2012/001 of April 19, 2012), states that immediately after the vote counting exercise at polling stations, the result of the election in each of the polling station, is made public. This means that a well – organized campaign team of a presidential candidate can have a good idea of the entire result within 48 hours, or even within 24 hours, by rapidly compiling the results on return reports (PVs) from the different polling stations across the country and in the diaspora, sent by their different polling agents.
But then another Article in the same Electoral Code, states that only the Constitutional Council, have the authority to proclaim the official result of the presidential election. Worse still, is the fact that after the real vote counting at the polling stations in the presence of the public, the Electoral Code again creates Divisional Vote Counting Commissions. This situation always ends up with the official result of a presidential election declared at the end, to be different from the result of the election from the compilation of genuine results on authentic return reports (PVs) from the polling stations.
What Is The Use Of The Divisional Vote Counting Commissions? / They Are Supposed To Be Scrapped
What is the sense in going to ‘count’ behind closed doors at the so called Divisional Vote Counting Commissions, votes that were publicly, and thus transparently counted at polling stations in the presence of polling agents, representatives of ELECAM and the administration, and voters or members of the public! More so, the return reports (PVs) are signed by all polling agents, representatives of the administration, and of course representatives of ELECAM who are Presidents of polling stations! There is no doubt that the introduction of the Divisional Vote Counting Commissions into the Electoral Code by the CPDM Regime, was done with the intention to use the leaderships of the Commissions to rig elections in favour of the candidate of the ruling CPDM at the presidential election, after the transparent vote counting at polling stations.
What many members of the public do not seem to know, is that it is at the level of the Divisional Vote Counting Commissions, which are headed by designated Presidents of High Courts, or better still, designated high court judges, that the big electoral fraud takes place. It is at the level of the Divisional Vote Counting Commissions, that most of the results from polling station that are unfavourable to the candidate of the ruling CPDM in the presidential election, are reversed, by changing the original results from polling stations , on the return reports (PVs) of CPDM and ELECAM. Worthy of note, that return reports from polling stations are commonly known in Cameroon as PVs.
ELECAM’s Copy Of The Return Report (PV)
It should be noted that in the current controversial Electoral Code, it is stated that in the case of a dispute over the detailed result on the return report (PV) from a polling station, it is the PV of ELECAM that is officially taken. And we all know that ELECAM and the CPDM are the same. And so when the CPDM comes up at the Divisional Vote Counting Commissions with falsified results on some of its PVs, the same thing happens to the PVs of ELECAM.
So, when disputes spark off over the detailed results on the return reports or PVs presented by the representatives of opposition candidates, and those presented by representatives of the CPDM candidate, at the Divisional Vote Counting Commissions, the Presidents of the Commissions insist on taking the PVs of ELECAM, under the pretext that they are applying the Law or what the Electoral Code says. So even if the representatives of 10 opposition candidates in a presidential election present the same PVs from a polling station, while that of the ruling CPDM candidate (incumbent) is different, the senior magistrate or judge who is President of the Divisional Vote Counting Commission, will reject the PVs of the 10 opposition candidates, and takes that of the ELECAM, which of course is the same like that of the CPDM, as the two are partners in crime.
What For Example Happened With Results From Polling Stations In Loum, Mungo Division.
Speaking for example during the programme, Canal Presse, over Canal 2 International, recently, the SDF Mayor of Loum, Wabo Guy Mesmin, disclosed that when he got to the Mungo Divisional Vote Counting Commission in Nkongsamba, after the October 12, 2025 presidential election, he was scandalized to observe that the results from the polling stations in his Loum Municipality or Sub –division, had been fraudulently changed. He said the PVs of the CPDM and ELECAM were falsified. Mayor Wambo said the total number of votes that was won by the CPDM candidate, Paul Biya, in Loum Sub –division, was increased at the level of the Mungo Divisional Vote Counting Commission, while the number of votes won by some opposition candidates were reduced. These falsified results from polling stations in Loum Municipality, were contained on the return reports or PVs of the CPDM and ELECAM.
Mayor Wambo said he also discovered another big fraud at the Mungo Divisional Vote Counting Commission. He said the total number of persons that actually voted at the October 12 poll in Loum Sub –division or Loum Municipality, was fraudulently increased at the level of the Divisional Vote Counting Commission, of course to the advantage of the CPDM candidate. Suffice to say that the representatives of opposition candidates at the Mungo Divisional Vote Counting Commission were helpless, as the President of the Commission insisted on the Commission taking the ELECAM return reports, under the pretext that he was acting in respect of the Electoral Law. And so at the end of the day, the authentic results from the polling stations in Loum Municipality were dumped, and, fake results adopted by the Divisional Vote Counting Commission. And that was what the Mungo Divisional Vote Counting Commission, sent to the National Vote Counting Commission.
National Vote Counting Commission Has No Power To Make Changes
It should be noted that contrary to what many members of the public also think, the National Vote Counting Commission, simply compiles the results that come from the 58 Divisions, that is, the 58 Divisional Vote Counting Commissions, and from that, the temporal results of the presidential election is known. It should be noted as well that the National Vote Counting Commission, which has as President a member of the Constitutional Council, does not have the power to make any modifications or changes on the results that are sent in by the Divisional Vote Counting Commissions. When the representative of any candidate protest against the result from a Divisional Vote Counting Commission, the President of National Vote Counting Commission will play his assigned – role by the regime, by insisting that the Commission does not have the power to change or modify anything that comes from a Divisional Vote Counting Commission.
That is why the work of the National Vote Counting Commission often goes very fast. It is because there is often little argument there. Representatives of opposition candidates often see no need to raise any argument or make a protest, knowing so well that nothing can be changed or modified by the National Vote Counting Commission, in the reports or results that are sent in by the Divisional Vote Counting Commissions. The National Vote Counting Commission in reality does not count votes. The Commission only compiles the results received the Divisional Vote Counting Commissions.
It is definitely also because the regime knows that no rigging takes place at the level of the National Vote Counting Commission, that the Electoral Code was designed in a way that the work of the Commission is opened to interested observers. Thus the work of the National Vote Counting Commission is opened to the public. This is also to give the false impression that there is transparency in the current electoral process.
.The Constitutional Council
There is the Constitutional Council that receives the result of the presidential election compiled by the National Vote Counting Commission, and officially proclaims it. What the Constitutional Council receive, is thus the controversial result that the National Vote Counting Commission compiled, based on the fraudulent results that were sent by Divisional Vote Counting Commissions. So as regard the October 12, 2025 presidential election, when several Cameroonians called on the President of the Constitutional Council, Clement Atangana, to examine his coincidence and proclaim the authentic or genuine result of the election as was registered after vote counting at polling stations, it was a waste of time. The President of the Constitutional Council, in reality did not officially have the authentic result. In line with the controversial Electoral Code, the Constitutional Council proclaimed as official result of the presidential election, what the Council received from the National Vote Counting Commission.
So apparently out of ignorance, some members of the public ended up targeting the President of the Constitutional Council in particular, and the other members of the Council, as allegedly being culpable for the electoral fraud, whereas the atrocious act against democracy, was committed at the level of the Divisional Vote Counting Commissions by senior magistrates.
Where the Constitutional Council of Clement Atangana is to blame, is that the Council seems to deliberately reject all petitions filed by opposition candidates relating to the conduct of the presidential election. The Constitutional Council can for example, in ruling on a petition, cancel the election in a part of the country, if the presidential candidate who filed the petition presents concrete evidences that there was electoral fraud, and that the fraud was of the dimension that it affected the result of the election in the area. But unfortunately the tendency has been for the Constitutional Council of Clement Atangana, to reject all petitions filed by opposition candidates, about alleged gross irregularities or election malpractices committed to the advantage of the natural candidate of the ruling CPDM.
The Case Of Senegal For Example
In the few democratic countries in Africa like Senegal, the result of the presidential election is known by all parties concerned within 48 hours after poll closed. We saw this with the 2024 presidential election in Senegal. This is because the official results of a presidential election in these democratic countries are obtained, based on democratic principles. The official result of the presidential election in Senegal, is obtained from the compilation of the authentic results registered at all the different polling stations, after the vote counting exercise that take place at the different polling stations immediately after voting ends. So besides the Electoral Commission, the parties or campaign teams of all the candidates that participate in the presidential election, do the compilations of the votes from the results contained in the return reports (PVs) sent in by their polling agents. In Senegal, there is nothing like Divisional Vote Commissions. Votes are only counted at the polling stations in the presence of all parties, including interested members of the public.
