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104 14  ElectoralGymnastics&theMilitaryOption f all the natural features on the earth’s landscape, a river is, to me, the most fascinating. I developed an immeasurable interest in rivers while at secondary school when our geography teacher taught us the life cycle of a river which, he said, has three stages in its development: a youthful stage, a mature stage and old age. In its youthful stage, also called the torrent stage, it moves with considerable force cutting through interlocking spurs. In the mature stage, the river flows through a smooth valley, having eliminated most of the obstacles in its way. In old age, it begins to meander again, forming oxbow lakes in the process. The life of a human being follows a similar pattern. In his prime (feminists must forgive me for the use of the masculine gender pronoun), the human being is full of youthful exuberance with enough energy to face and overcome obstacles. In middle age, his youthful passions are under control and he can be considered mature. And in old age he becomes senile, sometimes inconsistent and even childlike, needing the assistance of his child(ren) to walk, eat or make decisions .That is why William Wordsworth says ‘the child is the father of the man’. The Social Democratic Front, the party whose activities occupied centre stage in Cameroonian politics, was in its mature stage until 1996. In 1997 the characteristics of old age began to manifest themselves. The river (to conclude the analogy) is like truth. A river flows continuously through man’s irresponsible environmental activities. When the truth begins to come out, the revelation is non-stop until it ends. That is what began to happen to the SDF from 1996. In 1996, the SDF participated in municipal elections and won 62 councils, including half of all the major city councils. But the Biya regime appointed government delegates over the councils, which led to rioting in Bamenda, Kumba and Limbe. In Limbe, five persons were shot dead, including a soldier who was reportedly killed by his colleague for shooting dead an unarmed civilian. The protests produced no tangible results as the Biya regime maintained its government delegates. Contrary to SDF predictions when the terrorist attacks took O 105 place, the 1997 legislative elections were not postponed. The Biya regime need not have done that, after all, it drew up the electoral calendar and made it public. The CPDM and SDF contested all 180 seats and voting, which took place on 17 May 1997, went off smoothly. But even before the counting began, the regime reintroduced its 1992 trick. Kontchou, the New Deal’s Geobbels, began reading out the predicted results, known in French as tendences, a tactful way of preparing the public’s mind for CPDM. In a CRTV interview broadcast at 7 pm, the communications minister announced that the ruling party was leading by 116 seats and that the final results would be no different. The SDF went haywire and declared that it had more than 100 seats. But what Konctchou had declared, he had declared. The SDF was given 43 seats/ The Supreme Court cancelled results in a few areas but when the reruns finally took place the ruling party had the exact 116 seats the minister of communication had predicted. ‘Democratie Avancee’, a form of democracy whereby results of elections are arranged in advance, had triumphed. The final results put the SDF in a fix whether to enter Parliament or boycott it and continue on the streets. Little did the party know that its most malevolent enemy, or rather the enemy of democracy, was within the party itself. These were the majority of the 43 MPs-elect who argued that they spent fabulous sums of money during election campaigns and were determined to have it back whether the party liked it or no .So it was no longer a question of bringing change to Cameroon but a question of change in lifestyle for the chosen few. The debate that took place during an NEC meeting held in Fru Ndi’s building along Bamenda Commercial Avenue lasted almost the whole day. The Biya regime was also monitoring events in the SDF. The regime was still suffering from the devastating effects of the Ghost Town Operation which had brought the economy to its knees and could not bear the thought of the SDF going back onto the streets. When therefore it saw the country’s major opposition party unable to make up its mind...

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