As infighting persists: CPDM scheming to swallow PCRN!.

The legal battle at the Kaele Magistrate Court in Mayo-Kani Division of the Far North Region, over who is the leader of the political outfit, is now running parallel to activities on the political playing field. 

Amid the momentum around voter registration and alliances ahead of the next presidential election, which, normally should hold in October 2025, no party seems to be sleeping.

Having surfaced from the blues in November last year, thwarting an announced congress of the PCRN, with a claim of wanting to realign the party to its original mission, Robert Kona, one of the founding fathers of the party, is now being spotted in meetings with CPDM regime heavyweights!

The emergence of such pictures alongside posters of the Head of State, President Paul Biya, has left analysts concluding that the CPDM could be scheming to swallow the PCRN party. 

With no official communication yet on the meetings between Kona and CPDM supporters, those who have a mastery of political dynamics around presidential elections in Cameroon, say any announcement from the Kona-led PRCN faction in support of Biya’s candidacy from now going forward will not be a surprise.

That anticipated move, some are now saying, could be the ultimate reason Kona came forth to challenge Cabral Libii’s leadership of the PCRN party.

PCRN closer to UPC confusion scenario

Even if the court delays to rule on the leadership tussle, the picture in the minds of analysts now is that the PCRN is just inches away from finding itself in the same position as the Union Des Populations du Cameroun, UPC, party. 

The UPC faced a leadership crisis that split it in the build up to the presidential poll of 2018 and the twin elections of 2020. 

Multiple candidacies from both factions, especially during the 2020 twin polls, saw the country’s elections management body, Elections Cameroon, ELECAM, and the Constitutional Council, throwing out files of UPC potential candidates.

The Kona factor in the PCRN equation, many are concurring, already puts the party in a tight corner ahead of the twin and presidential elections expected next year.

Cabral Libii says images of Kona meeting with CPDM sign of fright within regime

In a series of reactions on his X handle, formerly Twitter, Monday April 22, the embattled National President of the PCRN, Cabral Libii, said pictures of Kona meeting with CPDM supporters have come to embolden growing fears of attempts by the regime in place to infiltrate the PCRN.

“These images confirm what many still refuse to believe. They are politically febrile and desperate. Simply put, behind their false smugness, they are seriously worried. After more than 40 years in power, they've sadly reached this point,” Cabral Libii, who is also a Member of Parliament, MP, wrote.

He further noted that those behind the scheme are using the administration and President Biya’s picture to propagate their agenda. 

Cabral Libii has stated: “Shamelessly, they cover themselves in mud to eliminate the opponents they fear. They use the public administration and Paul Biya's photo to endorse their baseness”.

Reply authors with massive voter registration

Beyond condemning the development and insisting that authors of such “prefer to wipe away indignity, as long as they can eliminate an adversary they fear”, Hon Cabral Libii sees massive voter registration as the best response to those playing the drums of division within the PCRN. 

“At this rate, only mass voter registration will drive them crazy with anxiety,” he remarked.

Recalls Kona’s dismissal from PCRN, regrets his “tactlessness”

Meanwhile, on Sunday April 21, when the first images of the Kona-CPDM supporters confab surfaced, Cabral Libii made remarks on why the man fighting to take the leadership of the PCRN was dismissed from the same political party.

According to Cabral Libii, two other founding fathers of the PCRN, Massardine Albert Fleuri and Wanfeo William, had long expelled Kona from the party. 

“No doubt it's because he was definitively expelled from the PCRN at the request of the party's two other founding fathers; Massardine Albert Fleuri and Wanfeo William), exasperated by his indelicacy, that he joins our main political adversary,” the MP and political leader declared.

He added that: “Even if this trajectory is logical, the fact remains that with him we worked together for a while for political alternation in Cameroon. May God be gracious to him, even if we know the fate of all those who preceded him on this path...I am saddened”.

Cabral Libii-led faction accuses state media 

In a statement on April 19, the PCRN National Secretary for Press, Information and Propaganda, Armand Okol, accused government of hiring state-own media houses to destroy the opposition party.

Okol wrote, addressing the national and international community, to make a reading of what he said is a state media war against the PCRN. 

He denounced what he described as “media persecution of the PCRN”. Okol recalled that in the last couple of months, the government has been using the state media to run one-sided reports against the PCRN to further fuel confusion within the party.

Gov’t desperate to thwart Cabral Libii’s candidacy 

The PCRN, through the Okal-signed statement, declared that the armada of attacks against it are being fashioned with the goal of thwarting Cabral Libii’s candidature at the next presidential poll. 

Okol, in the release, also accused the Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, of being at the heart of attacks against the PCRN.  

He enthused that irrespective of what happens, the PCRN, through its supporters nationwide, remains determined to triumph.

Anti-Cabral PCRN faction congress irrelevant

On the announced congress of the Kona-led faction of the PCRN, billed for Maroua, in the Far North Region for April 25 and 26, Okol described it as a nonevent. 

He rather said the Cabral Libii-led PCRN is preparing for a congress in Foumban, Noun Division of the West Region, at a date yet to be announced.

It should be recalled that on November 16, 2023, the PCRN, under the leadership of Cabral Libii, received an authorisation to hold its congress. 

It was supposed to take place from December 15 to 17 in Kribi, Ocean Division of the South Region. 

The government later proscribed the meeting, citing threats to public peace and order.

Kona later dragged Cabral Libii to court, in December 2023. He is praying the court to annul the resolutions of the PCRN congress of May 11, 2019, held in Guidiguis, Mayo-Kani Division of the Far North Region. 

He says the gathering was a simple meeting with 11 members in attendance, who gave Cabral Libii the chance to head the PCRN.

The court first heard the matter on January 4, 2024. In a release on April 4, Barrister Rene Bebe, counsel for Cabral Libii and one of the Vice Presidents of the PCRN, disclosed that the case had recorded four adjournments. 

Barrister Bebe disclosed that the matter was first adjourned to February 1, 2024. It was again adjourned to March 7 and April 4. The next hearing comes up May 2.

Upcoming presidentials & the Cabral Libii equation

The nation’s political chessboard show Cabral Libii and Prof Maurice Kamto of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, MRC, as the two persons whose candidatures in the next presidential election will heat up the polity.

With the CPDM reportedly already banking on Kamto out of the game, Cabrali Libii, it is being viewed, is the next target to be weakened. Kamto’s MRC is not represented in parliament and does not have councillors. 

Recall that as per the Electoral Code, he will need 300 signatures from Members of Parliament, Trades Chambers, Regional, Muncipal Councillors and First-class Chiefs nationwide to qualify to run for the election.

Unlike Kamto, the PCRN has five MPs and controls seven councils, with at least 200 councillors. With such a backing, pundits see the splitting of the party as the easiest way to stop Cabral Libii from running for the office of President of the Republic in 2025. 

For one thing, Cabral Libii came third in the 2018 presidential poll. He emerged from there and used his political capital to come to parliament and win some councils. 

The rallying capacity of the MP and his posing as a threat to give the ruling CPDM a run for its money, are said to be what have led to the current leadership crisis within the PCRN party.