A FEW REMARKS ON LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATION
IN CAMEROON TODAY
Representing the populations in a context of underdevelopment, relative
poverty and infant democracy, primarily appears for the large majority
of people as a bread-winning job or a position like others. In 1992,
in my electoral constituency and even in the circles of administrative
and political elite of the country, you could hear this embarrassing
interrogation from people : " what is he again looking for, in his
present capacity as Secretary General of the ruling party and Adviser
of the President of the Republic ? In short, standing for legislative
representation was just considered as a bread-winning position which
could be left to an " unemployed " or to a " person without
a position ". If people who were considered learned and well informed
could see things as such, what of the large majority of ordinary citizens
? Parliamentary candidates come from among the people and are therefore
bearers of the same visions and representation of things. That is why
I find it necessary to begin the present remarks by considering awhile
the motivation of candidates for parliamentary elections.
I- THE MOTIVATIONS OF CANDIDATES FOR PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
These are multiple and varied - But despite their multiplicity, they
can be summed-up in two major categories : personal and self-centred
motivations on the one hand, and on the other hand altruist motivations
of general interest. Becoming a member of Parliament means that you will
earn a monthly salary referred to as " parliamentary allowances " ;
it means that you will have to wear insignia of power like the three-coloured
sash which confers important prestige and distinction ; it means that
you will always have a reserved seat in grand-stands on the occasion
of official ceremonies. We also read in newspapers some articles which
claim that some candidates long for wearing a parliamentarian stole only
to enjoy immunity and eventually, to be issued a diplomatic passport
that would make it easier to obtain visas for travelling abroad. These
are undoubtedly some egocentric and individualistic reasons behind the
above mentioned motivations. What is considered of primary importance
here is personal or selfish interest. It goes without saying that the
fulfilment of his mission by a member of parliament may more or less
be largely influenced by this initial motivation.
On the contrary, there may be some candidates whose political commitment
is consistent with the initial principle that must justify the move of
any political figure When we examine the Greek etymology " polis " and " politikos " of
the word " politics ", we find that city, town stand for " polis " and
citizens, the collective life of the city stand for " politikos ".
The above mentioned category therefore refers to candidates who are aware
that a politician is first and foremost a person who is at the service
of his fellow citizens, that is to say at the service of his entire community.
This category of candidates does not engage in politics to get rich and
have their personal problems solved. They are aware that personal satisfaction
and other advantages will be theirs in addition and they do not disdain
these benefits, be they material, financial, protocol or honorary ; these
fall-outs come after the consideration that being at the service of others
confers the mission of a parliamentarian extra nobility attached to any
political assignment.
II The Electorate's expectation.
A distinction must be made between what I may refer to as permanent
expectations and those expectations related to the promises made by candidates
during electoral campaigns.
a) Permanent expectation
In any electoral constituency of a poor country, the large majority
of electors tend to channel to the member of parliament all their grievances
originally meant for the Government. As a matter of fact, the Government
and its ministers are far off in the capital city. Such a feeling is
most accentuated in our African contexts, where the constituency has
none of its sons in the position of government minister. The constituency
may even be honoured from time to time with the visit of a member of
government, but if the latter is not a son of the soil, he will just
be considered as the representative of an anonymous and distant organ
who generously and regularly distributes some gifts and benefits to whoever
he wishes.
On the contrary, the Member of Parliament is a son of the soil, a native
of the constituency. He and his parents are well known. He is supposed
to be well acquainted to the "suffering" of his people, as
he lives in communion with them (All this pending the day on which some
candidates will seek votes in constituencies they do not hail from; "otherwise
referred to as pitch forking). That is why as you well know, during electoral
campaigns in our constituencies, candidates have always started speaking
to the people by saying, "you all know that I am one of your etc…" This
argument is made use of because it works. In addition to the criteria
of being close by origin and by belonging to the same tribal, linguistic
and cultural community in general, there is the fact that after his election,
the newly elected member of parliament visits his constituency frequently.
Most of the time, he even lives in his constituency as he must justify,
by mere declaration during his campaign, that he has a secondary or principal
residence there. In short the member of Parliament should feel at ease
among his own people. Why should we wonder why his electorate expects
all from him? They globally expect poverty to be eradicated; in a more
positive way, they expect riches to be created. In particular, they expect
to have viable and good roads in all seasons; they expect hospitals,
pipe-borne water, electricity in villages, they expect schools and teachers
(who are not forcibly in post despite appointments and transfers); they
expect everything from the member of parliament. And still, I have only
mentioned above the needs concerning the entire community. But besides
these collective needs, there are individual grievances, which are recorded
by the Member of Parliament at various talks with those wishing to be
received by him.
However, the centralised system has often brought the populations to
expect everything from the Government and the incumbent member of parliament,
thereby causing one and another to avoid keeping a close eye on his immediate
environment which conceals specific local resources that only need to
be tapped, at least on a smaller local or regional scale.
At the moment when decentralisation is soon becoming a reality, it is
more than urgent to give the potential wealth of each environment and
locality the attentions it deserve. The National Water Corporation should
certainly think of providing rural areas with drinking water ; but it
is sometimes possible to help catch drinking water from a natural source
which flows out wastefully everyday, for lack of any initiative from
the various officials, including mayors and Members of Parliament. In
dry season, sand banks are hidden in the beds of some rivers. The easy
and routine tapping of such sand is linked to the construction of buildings
; yet, it may be possible to consider devising micro glass projects !
Likewise, SOCAPALM has, with regard to palm oil, not prevented the creation
of individual small-scale palm oil farms. Why not encourage the local
construction of micro oil plants and micro soap factories ? In any case
time will soon come when the rural world shall be provided with small
village manufacturing industries such as : micro oil plants, micro rice-grinders,
micro starch-factories, micro maize-grinders, micro industrial carpentries,
etc. A Member of Parliament is supposed to represent his electorate's
awareness so as to be responsible for the expression of all the aspirations
and sensitisation actions to be carried out in order to tap all such
potentials for the well-being of his fellow citizens.
Such are permanent expectations which cannot be definitely met throughout
several successive parliamentary mandates.
b) Expectations related to electoral promises.
Candidates for parliamentary elections cannot help making promises to
the populations. That's is part of their programme of action in case
they are elected. The people's expectations would be higher in as much
as future parliamentarians freely take these commitments themselves.
In general, the most sensitive needs are mentioned, as they will certainly
win lively applause from the populations. This is where demagogy often
comes in to a large extent. Candidates are sometimes aware of the difficulties
to which they will be confronted when trying to achieve some of their
promises; they nevertheless strive to achieve them through rashness,
as they do not ignore their obligation to present a balance-sheet at
the next electoral campaign! But more often, what counts is the present.
They get down to the task and after their election, the rapid flow of
days and nights take them to the next electoral campaign.
My personal experience enabled me to be aware of the fact that the populations
are more sensitive to sincere statements from the candidate's address.
They do not expect to be promised the earth. They are sufficiently reassured
to listen to their son, brother and fellow-citizen speaking a language
that refers to their outstanding needs and expectations. As for the rest,
they rely on him to be the faithful interpreter of these needs to the
higher circles where they are represented. They just have to be convinced
of the fact that their elected representative will be the defending militant
of their interests far away in the capital city, in the National Assembly
and with top government authorities.
III. How to meet such expectations
A Member of Parliament does not manage a budget allocation so as to
be duty-bound to personally and directly achieve specific work or projects
in favour of his constituency. In this regard, a regrettable misunderstanding
occurred since the allocation referred to as "micro projects" was
instituted and when some members of parliament of the 1997-2002 legislature
(which was mine) invited the television for the coverage of some of their
achievements: award of various gifts such as benches for schools, drugs
for health centres and dispensaries, improvement of drinking - water
points. Some members of parliament even mentioned that they sponsored
the achievement of small bridges over river. Honestly, the allocation
for "micro-projects" cannot make it possible to build bridges
and schools. A Member of Parliament can only act within the framework
of the preparation of the state's budget by obtaining the inclusion of
one or two projects in favour of his constituency. After such inclusion
is effective, it is therefore his duty to follow-up their implementation
within the context of the fiscal year concerned. Apart from including
and following-up the implementation of some projects in the state's budget,
a member of parliament who is supposed to be aware of the economic, social
and cultural realities and capacities of his constituency will show proof
of his readiness to serve by permanently making sure that the needs of
his fellow-citizens are satisfied, in particular those facing repeated
and varied frustrations. In this connection, the populations of forest
areas have for a long time been exploited by timber companies having
their head offices outside these areas and have repeatedly complained
about what they rightly considered as open looting of their wealth without
they being able to draw the slightest profit from their natural resources.
Fortunately that the forestry law presently in force in our country
has put an end to this situation. This does not however spare the people's
representatives take duty of continuing to ensure the proper and strict
implementation of that law. In that connection, he has been provided
with a space within the context of oral questions to members of government.
IV. Relationships with the Government.
Apart from oral questions to members of Government at specific sessions
provided for this purpose, a member of parliament is given the opportunity
to meet members of Government in their offices for more effective talks
and contacts. Such contacts may be more effective because experience
has recently revealed some sort of competition between members of Government
and member of parliament. Owing to the fact that here in Cameroon, a
large majority of members of Government are not chosen from among the
elected representatives, there is some sort of confrontation between
two legitimate authorities: that of a member of parliament resulting
directly from the people and that of a member of Government resulting
indirectly from his appointment by the Head of the Executive Power, the
President of the Republic who is elected by the entire nation. This situation
did not occur in the era of "one-party system". Some members
of Government have sometimes made things difficult to members of parliament
who consulted them to facilitate the execution of projects in their localities.
For these members of Government, it is necessary to avoid giving the
populations the impression that it is their representatives in parliament
who initiated and caused the execution of a specific project. On the
other hand a member of Government who is not accountable to the populations
as he was not elected by them, sometimes behaves as if he were an elected
representative who wants to attract in his favour recognition for the
projects thus achieved. That is why many members of parliament are bluntly
rejected on looking for an interview by some members of Government who
undertake to behave like "ministers for the sake of their villages",
thereby forging thing that they are ministers of the Republic. They can
even be seen vying for votes as Members of Parliament at next parliamentary
elections. However, they are not many to engage in such an undertaking
considered perilous in private circles by some of them.
It must now be said that there is still another reason for competition
among some members of Government and Parliament: competition for the
award of public contracts. Some members of Parliament are entrepreneurs
and business proprietors who struggle for public contracts to be awarded
their favourites or their companies; as for members of Government, they
struggle for public contracts to be awarded in favour of their men of
straw, even if they are not entrepreneurs themselves. Hence a cold war
that is lost in advance by the member of parliament, in particular when
both hail from the same constituency.
The situations I have just mentioned fall under what I consider as Cameroonian
specificities and peculiarities of the present times. Such situations
may possibly be found in other African countries. On the contrary, where
members of Government are largely considered as elected representatives
of the people, such situations and conflicts do not exist. It appears
to me that our democracy is moving towards this direction.
V. The ideal wish of having a Member of Parliament for each constituency.
There is another evolution that is expected could be ushered in within
the context of carving electoral constituencies. Indeed I believe that
for the sense of responsibilities of a member of parliament to be strengthened,
it is necessary to proceed sooner or later to a new carving of electoral
constituencies so as to provide for a parliamentarian seat in each constituency.
Presently in Cameroon, there is only a small number of electoral constituencies
with one seat, alongside many constituencies with several seats; this
makes it necessary for candidates to vie for election on list-ballot,
a mode that has the inconvenience of covering-up the responsibilities
of candidate is representing a specific constituency or subdivision.
For instance, the nine members of parliament for the WOURI Division cannot
be properly assigned to the six administrative subdivisions. Each political
party presents its candidates globally on a list of nine names. Therefore
under such circumstances, the elected representatives may feel individually
less accountable and liable to the pressures and expectations of the
populations. Everything starts with general, global and unspecific promises
during the electoral campaign, and continues throughout the mandate with
no obligation to report parliamentary activities to the people, up to
the tendency by those members of parliament of being cut off from their
grassroots.
VI. Representative mandate and imperative mandate.
At this juncture, I may be reminded of the title of my book. "The
Nation's parliamentarian" in which I referred to the provisions
of Article 15 of the Constitution which provides under paragraph 2 that "every
Member of Parliament shall represent the whole nation" and that "any
imperative mandate shall be null and void". I may be reminded with
surprise of the fact that the essential part of my statement deals with
the relationships of a Member of Parliament with the constituency that
elected him. This is correct! I avail myself of this opportunity to say
a word on the notions of representative mandate and imperative mandate.
Under the former regime in Europe, in particular in France prior to the
1789 Revolution, the representatives were submitted to specific and punctual
instructions by those from whom they got their mandates. They were spokesmen
who could be dismissed at any time when they had not correctly fulfilled
instructions received from their constituents. That was the imperative
mandate. It was purely personal as the representatives were individually
accountable for the specific commitments they took. That is why J.J.
Rousseau did not accept this political machinery which was to him less
consistent with the system of people's sovereignty.
The contemporary institutional system adopted Rousseau's vision on this
point. When various constitutions and that of Cameroon in particular
clearly state that "any imperative mandate shall be null and void",
they mean to underscore the idea that being elected in a constituency
does not make a member of parliament to be under the obligations of his
electors. He is more exactly holding a mandate by which he represents
the entire nation, that is to say the whole people. That is what is referred
to as representative mandate, as opposed to imperative mandate. Such
a global conception of national representation safeguards the indivisibility
of sovereignty, an idea Rousseau cherished so much.
There we are with principles. The practical functioning of representation
is another matter. The method for designating representatives is by election
and not by discretionary appointment, depending on the will of an authority
before whom they would be accountable; they are not selected from a toss
either. Elections are carried out on the basis of a programme and usher
in a new type of relationships between a member of parliament and his
electors. Representatives have themselves their hands tied through programmes
and electoral promises which take into consideration the people's grievances.
Such grievances are expectations and not "instructions" which
fall under an imperative mandate. For the sake of reporting to the people
what has happened of the promises made to them and what has become of
their expectations, a member of parliament who is bound by the representative
mandate is compelled to report back to the people during information
and explanatory campaigns which, in Cameroon, are referred to as "reports
of parliamentary activities".
VII. REPORTS OF PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITIES
Out of the hemicycle, a member of parliament either follow-up with the
Government some files and projects of general interest concerning his
constituency or certain files concerning some of his electors in particular,
or holds information meetings in his constituency that are usually referred
to as meetings for reporting on parliamentary activities. These are moments
for exchanging opinions with the populations.
Within the context of our countries where the educational standards
of our populations do not make it easy for them to understand technical
explanations concerning some newly voted laws, a member of parliament
must learn how to be a good educationist and communicator in order to
explain in simple words that can be easily understood by his listeners,
the contents of such laws, and even of some general information related
to the economic well-being of the nation.
These are occasions where a member of parliament is expected to be concrete
and pragmatic when reporting on the important grievances and expectations
of the populations. The hierarchical superior of a member of parliament
is the people who elected and will re-elect him in case they are unsatisfied.
But the criteria for measuring or assessing the satisfaction of electors
are not always what is expected. Within a context marked by poverty,
some habits have been going-on consisting in offering food at any encounter.
When the populations have received food and drinks from their representative,
they are satisfied on the spur of the moment; this is not a guarantee
for the elect to resort only to such precautions and short-lived "achievements".
Giving food and drinks does not replace bringing one's contributions
for the implementation of projects of common interests which must be
satisfied on a permanent basis.
This is where a difference is noted between those members of parliament
whose motivation is strictly personal and selfish and those whose motivation
is serving others and satisfying the interests of the entire community.
If a member of parliament may sometimes have the feeling that his electorate
tends to be taking him hostage, the population on their part may also
suspect some foul play as corruption from the elected representatives
who are out to cause them to forget their main grievances by organising
such frequent feasting occasions.
The no re-election sanction against the elected member of yesterday
is sometimes the result of a reaction which also falls under the context
of poverty. An out-going member of parliament who may have displayed
relative generosity by distributing gifts individually to one and another
and by offering food and drinks all the time, may not be elected, following
a campaign by his opponents who laid emphasis on the necessity of giving
votes to another candidate "so as to ensure that not the same persons
should be always eating".
From the 1997-2002 legislature to the present legislature in Cameroon,
the renewal rate stands at about 80% for the total number of seats and
for each political party having representatives at the National Assembly.
A fundamental problem can be noted at this juncture: the representatives
may not give much importance to the sanction of their eventual no re-election.
Throughout their mandate which would be surely difficult to renew, as
the doctrine prevailing and circulating wants it that the incumbent should
promptly give up their seats to others who are impatiently waiting to "eat" in
their turn, members of parliament show proof of lack of passion for truly
assuming their duty as the people's representatives responsible for defending
the general interest. And this would be the blatant evidence of egoistic
motivation as opposed to altruistic motivation mentioned at the beginning
of this statement.
CONCLUSION
What can we say to conclude? Being elected as a member of parliament
today in the socio-economic context of a country like Cameroon is still
more or less achieved in the confusion of assignments and roles. For
many therefore, being a member of parliament is first and foremost having
won a "position" that will make it possible to solve personal
financial and material problems. It is a bread-winning position like
others. However, a certain pride arising from the feeling of holding
a direct popular legitimacy appears to have aroused envies among top
officials of the Republic who are members of Government, some of whom
feel like being incited to become members of parliament by rushing to
the field to oppose the incumbent members. This surely predicts the days
when members of Government will be called upon to apply for the peoples'
votes. The populations and the entire nation will stand to gain when
the Government and the holders of a representative mandate will act in
association and convergence for the good and well-being of all.
|
Activités
