Cameroon polls marred by complaints

Cameroonians voted Monday in polls designed to shore up the parliamentary majority of President Paul Biya's ruling party and consolidate his three decades in power, as international observers complained of irregularities.

Voting in the central African country ended at 6:00 pm (1700 GMT), but few people were observed casting ballots by an AFP correspondent in the capital Yaounde as the final count began by candlelight.

One observer from the Lawyers Without Borders organisation said they had seen incidents where voters' names and numbers did not match those marked on the electoral roll.

"It is almost certain that there will be an impact on the final numbers," the unnamed observer said. "A number of liberties were taken with the requirements of good practice," he added, saying that some voters were not guaranteed total secrecy to cast their vote.

"I've just seen that the number on my voter's card is not the same as the one next to my name on the electoral roll," voter Tcheck Tcheck said at a polling station in a Yaounde school requisitioned for the ballot.

Biya, 80, was prime minister in 1982 when then president Ahmadou Ahidjo stepped down, in a move that made his government chief head of state. Since winning a presidential election in 1984, Biya has ruled with extensive powers and has taken steps to prolong his term in office.

His Cameroonian People's Democratic Movement, RDPC, holds the majority of seats in the National Assembly and municipal authorities and is widely expected to make further gains.

After voting in a public school in the capital, the president mingled with supporters who shouted: "One hundred years in power, President!"

"Our democracy is maturing... we are making tremendous progress, and after the elections, we will instate a Constitutional Council," Biya said. "Democracy-building in Cameroon will be then be complete."

The main goal of the opposition parties, including the Social Democratic Front, SDP, which currently holds 16 seats, was to avoid losing ground in both the assembly and the municipalities, according to political commentator Mathias Nguini Owona.

But the opposition is deeply fragmented and 29 parties fielded candidates for parliament while 35 parties were in the running for local government seats.

Some 5.4 million voters were entitled to elect 180 members of parliament and thousands of town councillors in 360 polling stations across the country in a single round of voting.

The terms of the current cohort of lawmakers elected in the last elections in 2007 expired in 2012, but have been extended on three separate occasions.

"We are likely to see a confirmation of the RDPC's hyper-domination because the electoral contest is greatly unequal," said Owona.

'Lack of voter enthusiasm'

Opposition parties regularly accuse Biya's party of electoral fraud and of using state funds to wage their election campaigns while their opponents face financial troubles.

The government announced campaign funding totalling 1.7 billion CFA francs ($3.5 million, 2.6 million euros) and recently made half that sum available to parties contesting the election.

In October 2011, Biya was re-elected after beating long-time opponent John Fru Ndi, leader of the SDP, which has its roots in an English-speaking part of the country. The United States and France pointed to "irregularities" in the voting process.

After challenges to virtually every election result in the last two decades in the oil-rich but poverty-stricken country, both sides admit that the latest campaign has failed to capture the public's imagination.

"This lack of enthusiasm is indicative of the lack of confidence Cameroonians (have) in the electoral regulator Elecam," said Owona.

The country's borders, which have been closed since Saturday, are due to reopen Tuesday.

The government launched a high-profile campaign to tackle rampant corruption in 2006, arresting a number of prominent figures including former ministers and heads of public companies.