Coalition or collapse: Osih’s & Libii’s delusional politics of isolation.

From its earliest days it has chosen isolation over collaboration, a pattern that has repeatedly strengthened the very regime it claims to oppose.

Cameroon’s political arithmetic is brutally simple: divide and rule. President Paul Biya has mastered this art for over four decades, surviving attempted coups, diplomatic censure, socio-political uprisings, and multiple elections by exploiting one constant—a fragmented opposition. The numbers are instructive. 

In the 2018 presidential race, Biya officially secured 71% of the vote. Yet if the opposition had rallied behind a single candidate, the combined tallies would have forced a run-off and perhaps a different outcome. Instead, votes were splintered among Maurice Kamto, Cabral Libii, Joshua Osih, and a scatter of minor contenders. 

Backed by state resources, a gerrymandered electoral code, and a tightly controlled media, the CPDM machine needed only to watch the opposition cannibalise itself.

History offers an unambiguous lesson. Across Africa, long-standing regimes have fallen only when opposition forces set aside ego and ideology to present a united front. Zambia in 1991, Senegal in 2000, Kenya in 2002, and The Gambia in 2016 all witnessed entrenched incumbents defeated only after opposition leaders forged alliances and rallied behind one candidate. Fragmentation prolongs autocracy; unity creates momentum.

Yet, the SDF has repeatedly ignored this calculus. Once hailed as the embodiment of popular resistance, it now seems to revel in permanent opposition—not only to the regime but, paradoxically, to other opposition parties. 

It protests, postures, and registers grievance, but seldom converts frustration into electoral victory. This fatalism is not heroism; it is self-sabotage. The pattern was set as early as 1991, when Cameroon’s pivotal tripartite conference was convened to negotiate constitutional reforms. 

Rather than leading the charge, SDF chairman John Fru Ndi arrived late and participated grudgingly, citing unmet preconditions—a symbolic act of delay that cost Cameroonians decades of potential democratic progress.

The same script played out in 2019, when the SDF boycotted legislative and municipal elections to protest the unresolved Anglophone Crisis. 

It even threatened to withdraw its sitting parliamentarians if the government failed to act—a threat that collapsed under its own weight. The result was disastrous: key parliamentary seats were lost, Anglophone communities were deprived of a critical voice, and the ruling CPDM tightened its grip. Far from martyrdom, this was political abdication.

Today the cycle continues. Party leader Joshua Osih’s refusal to join a coalition fragments the anti-CPDM vote and exposes the party’s true weakness. This is not the lonely courage of a principled outsider; it is the petulance of a leader too power-hungry to share the stage yet too weak to win it alone. Their recalcitrance raises serious questions about integrity, intention, and capacity to lead a modern democracy. 

They cannot pose as the “lone tough dog” when their every action feeds suspicion that they are, at best, merchants of grievance and, at worst, silent enablers of the status quo.

Cabral Libii offers no better example. Once celebrated as the youthful face of renewal, he has drifted from UNIVERS in 2018 to the Cameroon Party for National Reconciliation and now to a platform of his own design. 

This is not principled evolution but opportunistic manoeuvring. His refusal to support a single opposition candidate deepens public suspicion that he is a “sleeping candidate” for the CPDM—a spoiler whose ambition serves the very power he claims to challenge.

Against this bleak landscape, Akere Muna stands out as a rare figure of vision and discipline. A respected lawyer and anti-corruption crusader, Muna proved in 2018 that personal ambition can be subordinated to the national good when he ceded his candidacy to Maurice Kamto to strengthen the opposition’s chances. 

He has again entered the 2025 race only to immediately join the growing coalition, recognising that no individual can dismantle a system fortified by four decades of CPDM rule. His example demonstrates what true leadership demands: the courage to sacrifice ego for a collective good.

The strategic imperative is obvious. Only a coalition—broad enough to pool votes, share resources, and project a single, unambiguous alternative—can overcome the structural bias of Cameroon’s electoral landscape.