Everyone wants to succeed Paul Biya, but none is ready to line up behind the other to allow an alternation at the head of Cameroon to be considered. Nearly twenty months before the presidential election scheduled for October 2025, the outgoing head of state, 91 years old, 41 of whom are in charge of the country, shows no desire to pass the baton. Facing him, his opponents are already torn over the strategy to adopt to counter a patriarchal president who already appears to be the candidate of the Democratic Rally of the Cameroonian People (RDPC), hesitating between promoting a transition before the election and attempting to constitute a electoral alliance for 2025.
The first Cameroonian opponent since he placed second in the last presidential election in 2018, Maurice Kamto calls on other competitors to dub him. “He is the most determined candidate, the only one who has a program and who is truly critical of the regime,” insists lawyer Emmanuel Simh, 3rd vice-president of the Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC).
The objective is now to convince beyond his base that Maurice Kamto is the only one responsible for the opposition "who gives insomnia to power", as MP Jean-Michel Nintcheu thinks. The latter joined the MRC after its exclusion from the Social Democratic Front (SDF) and created the Alliance for Change in Cameroon in December 2023. “I will meet as many personalities as possible in order to convince them to support the candidacy” of the former presidential candidate, he assures.
The fact remains that Maurice Kamto's party, subject to repression by the authorities, remains suspicious and refuses any idea of coalition, certain opponents being, he says, "moles of the regime". An intransigence that the MRC is also developing in the context of a transition where power would be shared between the government and the opposition. “When we implement a transition, it slows down the country's economy, because foreign financial partners remain wait-and-see and no one ventures into an uncertain country,” emphasizes Emmanuel Simh.
An “inclusive transition”?
The idea of a transition period is, however, supported by Joshua Osih, head of the SDF. Coming in fourth position in the 2018 presidential election, the successor of historic opponent John Fru Ndi says he is in favor of a period of "inclusive transition" of which "Paul Biya must be part", but rejects the project of a single candidate of the opposition yet supported by his party. Except, probably, if he was the one chosen.
“Coalitions are premature to talk about today when we are at the end of our reign,” he believes, while considering that such a project is doomed to failure. “All it takes is for Paul Biya to ask a member of this coalition to run as a candidate for it to shatter,” predicts Joshua Osih, making no secret of his intention to be a candidate in the next presidential election.
Coming third in the 2018 election, Cabral Libii is not hostile to an “inclusive transition” where all parties would be represented, but he refuses to allow Paul Biya to take the lead. According to him, political and civil society actors should choose a single candidate for the 2025 presidential election. A “transition candidate” who would preside for a maximum of three years before leading Cameroon to general elections.
Already in 1992, when Cameroon organized its first general elections since the return of the multiparty system, the opposition had chosen Cardinal Christian Tumi for a period of transition. The prelate declined this responsibility and John Fru Ndi finally confronted Paul Biya at the end of a contested election which plunged the country to the brink of civil war.
The last attempt to present a single opposition candidate dates back to the 2004 presidential election. Just a few days before the election, John Fru Ndi ultimately preferred to go it alone, refusing to line up behind Adamou Ndam Njoya.
For political scientist Pierre Borice Menounga, given all these differences, it will be difficult to have a single opposition candidacy in 2025. “Everyone will want to defend their positions motivated by selfish interests. Only political art, an exceptional negotiating capacity of the actors, an unwavering desire for alternation will lead to a single candidacy, which does not guarantee change at the head of the State", analyzes this teacher from the University of Douala .
