Cameroon Supreme Court validates Oct. 9 presidential election

Cameroon's supreme court on Wednesday evening validated the Oct.9 presidential election and indicated that the final results will be proclaimed on Friday Oct. 21, 2011. Sitting in for the constitutional council, the supreme court also rejected all the 20 petitions filed by 10 of the 23 candidates who ran for the Oct. 9 presidential election for partial and/or total cancellation of the poll on simple ground that they were "unfounded". The rapidity with which the court squashed the cases made it a laughing matter for the hundreds of Cameroonians who turned up for the hearings and confirmed a claim by one of the petitioners, Bernard Muna of the Alliance of Progressive Forces (AFP), earlier in the day that the session was just a comedy when he left the court just before the hearing of his second file for total annulation of the election opened. "When we were in court for the hearing of the petitions, some of which were for the total annulment of the election including mine, I received an invitation from the very Supreme Court to come on the 21st (of October), that is in two days time, for the declaration of results," he told Xinhua, displaying the invitation. "This to me means that they had already made up their mind to validate the election and declare the results even though they had not yet looked into the petitions we filed. So I saw no reason to continue sitting in court to plead for my file because it will no more be of any use. That would just be wasting mine, and their time. In other words, this invitation is an indication that what is going on in the court now is just a comedy." Seven of the candidates from the opposition published a declaration on Monday asking the population to come out for street protests if the court refused to annul the election. "I still stand by that declaration. All is left to the people to decide. If they accept the result we'll have no choice but to also accept. But if they listen to our call and come out for the demonstrations, we'll be there with them," said Muna. And from the preliminary results in the letter of transmission from the national vote counting commission to the supreme court, which Xinhua managed to see, incumbent president and ruling party candidate, Paul Biya, who has been in power for 29 years, shall be declared winner. The preliminary results showed him topping the table with 77.78 percent, up from 70.92 percent in the 2004 presidential. He was again followed far behind by main opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) chair and candidate John Fru Ndi this time with only 10.71 percent, down from 17.40 percent in 2004. The transmission letter also indicated that 70 percent of the registered Cameroonians did cast their vote.