2025 presidential election: Kamto's pathway to protect Biya.

10/05/2023

As the 2025 presidential election approaches, stealthy succession battles are raging within CPDM barons with some potential contestants pretending to whitewash   their “Lion” and simultaneously being impetuous towards their adversaries.

But within the fractured and disunited opposition, Prof Maurice Kamto has stood out like a shooting star challenger to succeed the current Etoudi Palace tenant.

Perhaps, drawing from the historically and contemporary experience where some African former Heads of State have had to face excruciating justice for offence they committed while in power, Kamto, who still continues to claim he defeated Paul Biya at the 2018 presidential polls, has given the incumbent an assurance of protection.

At a rally in Yaounde last Saturday to install the Regional officials of his Cameroon Renaissance Movement, MRC, Kamto promised not to prosecute President Biya or any member of his family if, he, Kamto, wins the 2025 poll. 

“If I am President, nothing will happen to Paul Biya and his family”, the vocal opposition politician explained.

Speaking at the rally, Kamto added that: “I have a lot of respect for the canonical age of the President of the Republic in office. I said in 2018 and on various other occasions that if I were President of this country, if my victory had not been stolen and that I had acceded to the Supreme Magistracy, nothing would happen to him and to his family. And I repeat it here, if I am President, nothing will happen to him”. 

“I am the only political leader to have made this commitment and one of the rare ones to be able to give him this guarantee, because I know I can explain to Cameroonians why it is good to spare and to protect him," Kamto said.

As for what "crime" the Head of State has committed to deserve his pardon, Kamto recalled the embezzlement of several billions for the organisation of African Cup of Nations, AFCON, and that the state is becoming an "accomplice in the embezzlement" of public funds because none of the accused prevaricators has been arrested.

"However, I cannot help saying that the responsibility for this disaster lies with him [Paul Biya]. He stubbornly refused to do what Cameroonians expected of him to give him all the honours to which he aspires despite the failures accumulated throughout his long reign, namely to organise a democratic alternation in peace in Cameroon, with the guarantee of his authority as patriarch of the nation,” Kamto stated.

The constitutional law expert-turned politician said President Paul Biya should have left power since 2011. 

“His candidacy for the 2011 presidential election was already too many. I am not talking about that of 2018 and his confiscation of power, despite his electoral failure. It was a disaster for the country, because in 2018, in fact, he was already showing obvious signs of great fatigue and a certain lack of interest in the exercise of power on a daily basis, as clearly shown by the permanent delegation of signature to the Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic, without limitation of object or duration, by Decree No. 2019/043 of February 5, 2019, which constitutes a flagrant violation of the Constitution of our country. Why had he run for the presidential election of 2018 to transfer power to a personality not elected?”, he questioned.

Kamto's assurance to protect the president if he takes office in 2025 is a déjà vu, given that President Biya has immunity, even after living office and a guaranteed job as member of the Constitutional Council.

What is however left to be seen is whether the other real opposition leaders can take advantage of the subterranean infighting within the ruling CPDM to unite behind Kamto, who, with the political demise of the SDF, his party remains the main opposition cock crowing.

The theme of this year's celebration of the 38th anniversary of the ruling party was: "Rejoicing, rallying and mobilisation behind the national president, Paul Biya, in full awareness of future electoral challenges and issues".

They were "rejoicing" for their clean sweep of the elective senatorial seats. But beneath that rejoicing should be the dire consequences that border on the party's inability to organise the political game in unity.

Kamto set the issues at play for the coming elections, saying “Cameroonians only want one thing: peace”. He subsequently called for an end to the war in the English-speaking Regions, which he said, is "senseless".

At the social level, he denounced the high cost of living, explaining that “since the end of AFCON 2021, we have suffered the pangs of high cost of living”. To solve the problem, he proposed another “general increase in wages to allow Cameroonian households to gain some purchasing power”.

As one political philosopher pointed out after the crushing victory of the ruling party at the recent senate poll, "the CPDM has been a little gluttonous. While it stuffs its belly, it empties its credibility" in clan wars of succession parrying issues of high cost of living, embezzlement and corruption, which may offer an opportunity for the opposition to grab power in 2025 if they are united.