From: M.Titahmboh@lut.ac.uk (Mana TitahMboh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: CAMEROON: Mandat Prsidentiel et Partis Politiques
Date: 11 Jan 93 13:45:42 GMT
Organization: Loughborough University

In article <Jan.9.22.33.41.1993.5683@occlusal.rutgers.edu>,
shemlon@occlusal.rutgers.edu (Shiyghan Shemlon) writes:

|
|> > |> n'avait pas doti les autres des mjmes aptitudes intellectuelles.
|> > 
|> > I agree with this in theory, but, convinient as that is for limitting
|> > personality cults, I think it would limit the peoples' choice in who
|> > they want 
|> > to run their country. Having said that, this idea might have avoided the 
|> 
|> I do not think this limits the people's choices. It hasn't done so in
|> the United States of America. I think what it does is, it limits the
|> develpoment of HUMAN GODS. The constitution should prevent a
|> single individual from holding office for more than 2 CONSECUTIVE
|> 5-year mandates. This will prevent anyone  from spending their whole
|> life in office trying to devise mechanisms of how to stay in power.
|> Since former Presidents can stage a comeback, I don't see why anyone
|> cannot try to get back to the Presidential Palace after a 5 or 10 year
|> rest. If they did well during their term(s) in office they could still
|> get the people's vote. The rest period could also permit them to
|> reflect on some of their mistakes. Whatever the case no one should be
|> President  for more than 10 years consecutively. By the way in 10
|> years you make enough mistakes for anyone to want you back anyway.
|> So a comeback might be impossible but I don't regret it.
|> No leader is indispensible. Even the English could do without
|> Churchill after the War. 
|> 

I do not actually disagree that much with this. If I might just come back to
accountability, my view is that if politics are conducted  accountably, most of
the reasons for wanting to impose these checks will cease to play an important
role. Of course I realise  that is naive in the extreme but I fervently trust
the Cameroonians' maturity[political], or be it in the future, to choose 
president on merit. I believe Churchill was voted out of office, because the
British peoples' priorities no longer coincided with his politics.



|> > 2) An Independent Judiciary: The judiciary should "run their own affairs"
|> > according to the laws of the land. In particular, if accountability
|> > exists, no 
|> > judge should view their appointment as a political favour and,
|> > therefore should 
|> > be able to concentrate on administering justice.
|> > 
|> 
|> These are very important points. I think this is the crux of our
|> problem. The gov't is not accountable to anyone because no one decides
|> whether they should be there or not. A system that spells
|> "accountability to the electorate or you are out is necessary". Many
|> accused Fru Ndi of declaring he had won before the Supreme Court
|> spoke. I can bet you, any of you including myself would have done same
|> in his shoes. He knew the courts were tightly controlled by Biya and
|> believed he was going to be robbed of his victory by a Supreme Court
|> that had to serve its Master, President Biya. The Judiciary must be
|> independent of the Executive in a sytem that prides itself of having
|> effective checks and balances. I don't think we can say that of the
|> present Cameroon system. The closest Cameroonians ever came to this
|> was in the West Cameroon administrations from 1955 to 1965. The French
|> Administrative System (even in France) brings the Judiciary too close
|> to the Executive for my liking. I think we should copy and adapt the
|> American (USA) guidelines for Executive-Judiciary relations.
|> 
|> In addition the Electoral Law should be changed. No one should be
|> elected as President with less than 40% of the popular vote as Biya
|> supposedly was. Even in a country with the Electoral College system
|> this never happens. There should have been a run off election for the
|> two top candidates if non of the candidates obtained 50+% votes. This
|> is what "a gov't by the people means". You cannot have more than 60%
|> of the Cameroonian public shouting "WE DON'T WANT BIYA" and you still go
|> ahead and install him, and then be surprised at the stalemate.
|> 
|> > There are several other reforms that could be introduced, notably making
|> > ministers answerable to parliament for their actions [in practice], and
|> the
|> > latter more involved in the running of the country ... limit [or abolish]
|> > presidential decrees...
|> > 
|> 
|> This is very crucial. All Ministers, Secretaries of States,
|> Chairpersons of important State Corporations, Delegate Generals and
|> Ambassadors should be confirmed by parliament. Some of the
|> appointments I do agree are political, but someone must check to make
|> sure the competent people are given the job and that there is no
|> ethnic or regional over-biasing as is the case today.
|> 
|> I do not think Presidential decrees have a place in our Cameroon of
|> today. They should simply be abolished. You cannot govern a country by
|> decree. Benevolent despotism died in the 18th centu
|> > .......
|> > ....... [Stuff Deleted]
|> > .......

|> > |> aucun mal aux politiciens.
|> > 
|> > I don't actually see anything wrong with the formation of fifty or
|> > more parties 
|> > as long as they are "legal" according to the present rules. What
|> >worries me is 
|> > the ability of very small parties to find themselves in coalition
|> government
|> > -effectively carpet-bagging tools for thie leaders - with the same
|> > regime they 
|> > so vehemently denounced. I hope that  this is a "teething problem"
|> > and that once 
|> > the man in the street is "enlightened" the proliferation of small
|> > parties will 
|> > .......
|> > ....... [Stuff Deleted]
|> > .......
|> 
|> I think we are in a process of political maturing here. In my opinion
|> you shouln't worry about the large number of political parties. All
|> political parties with an ethnic or regional base will soon realize
|> that they can never produce a President. Of the 50 political parties
|> in existence, only 6 (12%) were able to field candidates for the
|> October 1992 Presidential elections. Of this 6, Paul Biya's RDPC and
|> John Fru Ndi's SDF each recieved more than 35% of the vote (God alone
|> knows what the exact figures were), Bello Bouba Maigari's UNDP about
|> 17%, Adamou Ndam Njoya's UDC about 5% and Jean Jacques Ekindi's MP and
|> the RFP candidate each got less than 1%. As you can see things sort
|> themselves out pretty well. The RDPC and SDF were the two most
|> nationally represented parties and their candidates did relatively
|> well nation wide (even if Biya's base was still considered to be The
|> Center, East and South Provinces and Fru Ndi's was the North-West,
|> Western, South-West and Littoral Provinces). Bello Bouba whose party
|> was predominantly Northen based lost for this reason. He didn't do
|> well enough in his Northen base. So ethnic affiliations led to Bello
|> Bouba's downfall and I will bet he learned his lesson. The other
|> parties except Adamou Ndam Njoya's were too small to even compete.
|> The UPC was too divided to present a candidate, even though I believe
|> it is a strong party. Eboa's party and other small parties rallied
|> behind Fru Ndi as the candidate for change.
|> 
|> From the above analysis you can see we shall end up with 3 or 4 strong
|> parties and may be 2 or 3 small parties to play the role of spoiler in
|> the formation of coalition governments incase no single strong party
|> gets the majority in Parliament (if we finally end up with Gov't
|> approved by parliament). I personally think this is politically
|> healthy and good for the country.
|> 
|> >
|> > |> > |> J'aimerais lire vos opinions ` ce propos.  
|> > |> > |> Poppi 
|> >
|> > Mana
|> 
|> I have the following proposals to add to the above.
|> 
|> 1. THE EXECUTIVE: 
|>      The President and Vice--President should be elected
|>    on the same ticket according to the above terms  and the ticket
|>    must get 50+% of the popular vote to be elected. 
|>      Bilingualism should be one of the required qualifications of all 
|>    Presidential and Vice-Presidential Candidates until Cameroon
|>    reverts to a single African Language.
|>      All appointments should be confirmed by parliament as stated above
|>    and bilingualism should be a requirement. 
|>      The number of ministries should be curtailed to 1/3 the current
|>    number to control waste and duplication and should remain uncahngeable.
|>      The Executive Structure should be independent of political party
|>    structures. Some of our problems of today are because we cannot
|>    seperate the state Executive from the CPDM ruling party.

I don't see a role for a vice president, especially while we have a prime
minister. I view the advent of an MP PM as a step in the right direction. The
"house" would have more authority over government ministers and secs. of state
if they are all MPs. 
I can see an obvious parallel with the american system here. In america, most of
the officials, who are supposed non-political usually are members of the ruling
party!


|> 
|> 2. THE LEGISLATURE:
|>      It should be bicameral. A SENATE with 20 members (2 per province)
|>    to insure equitable powers for all provinces, and a House of
|>    Parliament of 200 members (1 Parliamentarian per ~60,000 people).
|>      This should be styled after the US, British and French Systems. These
|>    bodies should be independent of the Executive.
|>      Elections to the House should be by constituencies of ~60,000
|>    inhabitants.  Each constituency should elect its representative. The
|>    constituencies should not be limited to the current administrative
|>    boundaries within a province. The list system must be abolished.
|>      Senatorial elections should be province wide with no regional
|>    limitations for candidacy.
|>      The Senators and Parliamentarians should also be elected for a
|>    5-year term.
|> 
|> 3. THE JUDICIARY:
|>      The current System should be revamped and made indepedent of the
|>    Executive. The Supreme Court should be made up of renowned Justices
|>    appointed  for a single 10-year term and confirmed by the
|>    Legislature. All members of the Judiciary system should also be
|>    independent of the manipulations of political parties.
|> 
|> 4. DECENTRALIZATION:
|>      If the majority does not opt for a federal structure, I will
|>    propose the following decentralization of the existing structure.
|>    If the majority opts for Federalism I have a different  structure
|>    in mind .
|>      Provincial Governors should be elected not appointed. Divisional
|>    Officers, sud-Divisional Officers and District officers should also
|>    be elected not appointed. (Appointing a Bassa for example as "Prefet
|>    du Noun" doesn't sit well with me. It gives the impression to the
|>    local Noun villager for example that a foreigner is ruling them.
|>    Many may argue with this, but I am sorry it is just the basic truth.
|>    Refusing to acknowledge it leads us no where. Can you imagine
|>    appointing an Ewondo mayor of Douala? You will be lynched.) It
|>    should however be required of all these elected officials to be
|>    trained Administrators. 
|>      All non-National Services like Police, Regional Planning, Local
|>    Taxation, Primary Education, etc. etc., should be reverted to the
|>    provinces.
|>      Each province should have an Elected Provincial Congress (a mini
|>    provincial Parliament) and all essential provincial  services
|>    should be headed by Provincial Delegates.
|> 
|> 5. CIVIL SERVICE:
|>      A civil service (a modification of the current Civil Service)
|>    should be established at State and Provincial Levels. This should
|>    be institutions that  are independent of all political parties, so that
|>    any Cameroonian can be a career civil servant without singing the
|>    praise of the powers that be as is the case today. As they say
|>    Presidents come and go but the state remains. A strong and well
|>    structured civil service with defined ministries, secretariats of
|>    state and provinvcial delegations will insure that this is the case.
|> 
|> PEACE TO ALL MY FELLOW COUNTRY MEN..
|> 
|> 
|> SHEMLON WO WAN WAN VIBAN
|> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

Ref: all the things about indepenedence from political parties;
My view is that a truely independent [from political parties] person is as rare
as a unicorn. I think that when the administration has to answer for its actions
to the peoples' representatives, it will make sure that its funtionaries are
clean. this cleanliness will ensure that they [funtionaries] do their jobs
faithfully; remember if they do anything illegal or amoral they can expect the
sack or prosecution. I strongly believe that whoever is appointed to any
position at any level of society is bound to have some political simpathies. Of
course , in certain circumstances, they will need to be quite remote from the
powers that be, in order to do their job competently.
Once they all realise this they will know to be independent from whoever
appointed them and the parties in power, in their turn, will come to realise
that it does not matter if they appoint someone from within their poltical
party.
I agree with all of the changes in favour of efficiency, such as
decentralization. The ritual of heading off to the ministry of Public Service in
Yaounde, armed with a briefcase-ful of you-know-what and chasing files for
months at a time, to the detriment of duties in the provinces should finally  be
laid to rest.

Mana
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african,soc.culture.bangladesh