2025 elections: Kamto ‘exposes’ ploy to reverse electoral calendar!.

The 2018 presidential candidate was unequivocal that any attempts by government to reverse the electoral calendar and hold the Presidential Election before the legislative, Municipal and Regional Council elections in 2025, will be in total violation of the law.

The former member of Biya government, now a stanch regime critic, made the outing on his verified Facebook page, on March 15. 

“…there are indications that the CPDM is persisting with its idea of holding the Presidential Election before the Legislative and Municipal Elections, due to be held in February 2025,” MRC leader hinted. 

Recalling a press conference, he granted on July 27, 2023, the politician and lawyer, explained why such a decision would be contrary to the country’s constitution and why it would be unjustified in financial terms.

“On the institutional level, flouting the electoral calendar to postpone the Legislative and Municipal Elections, for 18 months or indefinitely, would result in either the extension of the term of office of Regional Councillors, or the election of new Regional Councillors by Municipal Councillors with no elective mandate, surviving only thanks to the decree extending the duration of their term of office, and consequently devoid of any democratic legitimacy,” the politician said. 

According to the MRC leader, such maneuvers to first hold the Presidential Election before local elections “would taint the legitimacy of these institutions (Regional Councils) and would be profoundly undemocratic”.

This, Kamto said, is because “it would run counter to the republican principle of elections as the method of appointing representatives of the Cameroonian people to these institutions...”.

Reversing electoral calendar sign of panic 

Kamto went on to add that reversing the electoral calendar to hold the Presidential Election before the Legislative and Municipal Elections “would be a concrete expression of the panic that has gripped the CPDM”.

The opposition politician argues that the CPDM party, which has “led Cameroon into a dead end, hopes to be able to engage in a damage control to salvage the name of its President, which is the only cement that still allows the various enemy clans of this party in tatters, to give themselves an apparent cohesion”. 

In his usual claim that he won the 2018 Presidential Election, Kamto, holds that: “CPDM leaders naively hope that with the system of fraud and control over those in charge of State organs, put in place by the President of their party, no one would dare declare the latter's electoral defeat, even if, as in 2018, he was to lose at the ballot box”. 

The MRC National President said the ruling CPDM party plans to capitalise on the fact that Biya still holds executive power in the hope of winning the Legislative and Municipal Elections, which they would want to postpone to a date more convenient to them.

The former Minister Delegate to the Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, said despite such maneuvers, “Cameroonians are committed to respecting the electoral calendar” and more than ever “determined to bring about democratic change in their country and in their lives in 2025”.

Demands prosecution of those calling for Biya’s re-election 

Kamto expressed bitterness to the calls by some Cameroonians for the Head of State to seek re-election. 

To him, the Head of State is human and is “worn down” by decades of “exercising undivided power”.

Kamto said he considers those calling for President Biya to seek another mandate to be “prosecuted for mistreating an elderly person who deserves to be cared for and protected”. 

Calls for massive voter registration 

He used the outing to call on compatriots of voting age, and who are yet to have their names enrolled on the electoral register, “to continue their massive registration…”.

Kamto also encouraged them to “go out and vote when the time comes, to keep a close watch on the voting process and to defend their vote if necessary”.

Kamto sweating to be fit for 2025 presidentials

The Electoral Code in Section 121 (1), provides that for an individual to qualify to contest for Presidential Election, he/she must be invested by a political party or be an independent candidate on condition they put forward at least 300 signatures from the country’s ten Regions.

As it stands, Kamto, whose MRC party has no Municipal and Regional Councillors, as well as Members of Parliament, will only qualify for the 2025 Presidentials, if he is invested by another political party or if he gets the required 300 signatures from the 10 Regions of the country.

By calling for the respect of the electoral calendar, Kamto, which party boycotted the Municipal and Legislative Elections of 2020, hopes to field in candidates for the said elections in February next year.

The elections of members of the MRC party into Councils and in Parliament, will give the opposition leader a leeway to contest in the next Presidential Election.

That would however be impossible, should the next Presidential Election be staged before the next Municipal and Legislative Elections.