Senatorial Results: Only two political parties at Cameroon’s Senate

 Paul Biya and Fru Ndi head the two parties; CPDM and SDF

Cameroonians now know 70 of their 100 pioneer senators. The Supreme Court acting in lieu of the yet to be created constitutional Council proclaimed the official results of the first ever election of Senators in Cameroon that took place on Sunday April 14, 2013.

Only two of the four political parties that contested the election will have elected representatives in the upper house of parliament.

The Senate which is the upper house of the Parliament of Cameroon has 100 seats, of which 70 are elected and 30 appointed by the President, with each region having 10 Senators.

According to the official results made public Monday April 29, the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) won 56 seats in eight regions: the Centre, East, Far North, Littoral, North, Northwest, South and Southwest while the opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) won 14 seats in the West and Adamawa regions.

Thus, only these two political parties will have ELECTED senators in parliament.

The Cameroon Democratic Union-CDU that only contested in the West region and the NUDP that contested in four regions got no seats.

The two unfortunate political parties had petitioned the Supreme Court to cancel the vote in five regions where they said the election was marred by fraud. But the court judged the petitions as baseless.

Leaders of the political parties as well as their militants boycotted the proclamation of the official results by the Supreme Court on Monday.

The Senate was created in 1996 after an amendment to the constitution created the upper chamber. However, power to convene the Electoral College and call elections for the Senate remained with the President. President Biya chose not to do so until he signed decree 2013/056 on 27 February 2013, which set 14 April as the election date.

Following the proclamation of the results, the president of the Republic is thus going to appoint the remaining 30 senators in not more than 10 days. The President would appoint three each from the ten regions of Cameroon.

Both the 70 elected and 30 appointed senators will meet on the third Tuesday following the proclamation (Tuesday May 14, 2013) as of right according to provisions of Cameroon’s electoral code.

By Ndi Eugene Ndi