{"id":17692,"date":"2018-10-09T00:24:45","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T00:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17692"},"modified":"2018-10-09T00:24:45","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T00:24:45","slug":"cameroon-opposition-claims-election-win-ruling-party-disagrees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17692","title":{"rendered":"Cameroon opposition claims election win, ruling party disagrees"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Cameroon<\/a>‘s opposition candidate has claimed victory in Sunday’s presidential polls despite a government warning not to announce unofficial results.<\/p>\n

“I was charged with taking a penalty, I took it and I scored,” Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) candidate Maurice Kamto said at a news conference on Monday in Yaounde.<\/p>\n

“I have received a clear mandate from the people and I intend to defend it until the end,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I invite the outgoing president to organise a peaceful way to transfer power,” Kamto added.<\/p>\n

The opposition candidate did not give results to justify his claim, which was greeted by loud cheers from supporters as he made his announcement.<\/p>\n

But the deputy secretary general of the ruling-Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, Gregoire Owona, has accused Kamto of breaking the law.<\/p>\n

“It is not right at all to announce this. He hasn’t won anything at all. It’s totally illegal,” he said, adding that it was too early to say if anyone had won.<\/p>\n

“Kamto was not even represented at all the polling stations, (so) it was impossible for him to count all the votes,” he added.<\/p>\n

By law, each polling station must submit its results after verification by the electoral commission, to the Constitutional Court which is responsible for announcing the official tally within 15 days.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the polls, Kamto formed a coalition with the marginal opposition People’s Development Front (FDP) but was still seen as unlikely to threaten Preident Paul Biya’s 35-year grip on power.<\/p>\n

The main opposition Social Democratic Front contender, Joshua Osih, did not participate in the coalition.<\/p>\n

The counting of votes<\/a> has not been concluded in an election expected to return Biya for a seventh term<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Biya, Africa’s oldest leader, has been in office since 1982.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cameroon’s opposition candidate has claimed victory in Sunday’s presidential polls despite a government warning not to announce unofficial results. “I was charged with taking a penalty, I took it and I scored,” Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) candidate Maurice Kamto said at a news conference on Monday in Yaounde. “I have received a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":17693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}