Cameroonian government rules out postponing general elections

CGTN Africa  | The Cameroonian government ruled out the possibility of postponing general elections scheduled for February 2020, a government spokesperson said on Monday.

“The government condemns all maneuvers that amount to blackmail and one-upmanship, and denounces the various foreign attempts to interfere, which are in violation of our laws, and which are advocating further postponements, indefinite postponements, of announced legislative and municipal elections,” Cameroon’s government spokesperson Emmanuel Rene Sadi told a press conference late on Monday.

Cameroon has already postponed the elections twice and the law prohibits further postponement, Sadi said.

Last week, Cameroon’s opposition leader Maurice Kamto said his party Cameroon Renaissance Movement would boycott the polls, citing insecurity in the English-speaking regions and “biased” electoral code.

Another major opposition party Social Democratic Front has also threatened to boycott the elections if “peace and security” is not restored in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions before the elections.

Sadi said the government reassures that “all security conditions and all measures to ensure the reliability of the electoral process will be taken.”

Elections for members of National Assembly and municipal councillors will take place on February 9, 2020, in Cameroon.

Separatists have vowed to disrupt the elections in the Anglophone regions where they are seeking to create an independent nation they call “Ambazonia.”

Since 2017, government forces have been clashing with armed separatist forces who want the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest to secede from the majority French-speaking nation.

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