After October 12 poll: Bello Bouba missing in action!.

He eventually took part in the election, emerging fourth, according to the Constitutional Council, with 112,758 votes cast, corresponding to 2.45 percent score. 

While the likes of Hon Cabral Libii of the Cameroonian Party for National Reconciliation, PCRN, who performed better than him alongside other candidates who got worst results have commented on the election, Bello Bouba has remained silent.

The last time Bello Bouba was heard commenting about the election was on voting day, on Sunday, October 12, 2025, when he cast his vote in his native Basheo village on the outskirts of Garoua. 

Since then, Bello Bouba has not made any pronouncements relating to the conduct of the poll. Even his political party, the UNDP, has gone mute.

Observers of the political scene have continued to battle to make meaning of the unusual silence of the political gladiator Bello Bouba has been across decades. 

Whether Bello Bouba or his UNDP party has accepted the outcome of the election has also been subjected to debate. The UNDP, unlike others, has not congratulated Paul Biya who won the election with 53.66 percent of the votes cast, going by the Constitutional Council.

Silence sparks varied interpretations

The silence of Bello Bouba has been at the origin of several inferences across the political spectrum. While some are qualifying the blackout from his end as not unconnected to the poor performance of the UNDP in the race, others say Bello Bouba could be resting after an intense election campaign.

There are those who are conjecturing that he may have been brought into the race to diffuse the momentum, which Issa Tchiroma Bakary, candidate of the Cameroon National Salvation Front, FSNC, was enjoying on the campaign trail.

With President Paul Biya having secured another mandate and now focused on implementing his agenda, observers say it is but normal for the UNDP leader to step backwards. 

Even at that, critics say in the name of democracy and for posterity, Bello Bouba or his party is supposed to have at least communicated what it makes of the entire presidential election and not go comatose abruptly.

For one thing, when campaigns where on and calls heightening for an opposition alliance ahead of the election, the UNDP party was constantly updating Cameroonians. 

At other times, it issued statements to dissociate itself from certain platforms wherein it had been unilaterally added.

Energizing base to stay relevant?

Bello Bouba, for some, simply toured the country in the heat of the presidential election just to fire up the UNDP’s political base. 

He only formally declared his intension to run for the race during a Central Committee meeting of the UNDP in Yaounde on June 28, 2025. Then, he said he was responding to calls from the party’s supporters nationwide.

The sparks of hopes he gave to citizens and party supporters alike as he toured communities campaigning and failing to acknowledge their efforts after the election, some are saying, sent across the message that Bello Bouba long knew the UNDP was not going to create any surprises in the election after all.

Complex resignation from government 

Another key thing associated with Bello Bouba and this year’s presidential election is how he left the government as minister. 

Having been part of every cabinet since 1997, rising to the rank of Minister of State and occupying several positions, he was not affirmative about quitting his post as Minister of State, Minister of Tourism and Leisure.

Unlike Tchiroma who resigned and publicly acknowledged that he was no longer Minister of Employment and Vocational Training, Bello Bouba kept giving journalists ‘complex’ answers, each time the question of his resignation came up.

He had promised to submit such a letter only to the person who appointed him when the time comes. Not until the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Dr Chief Joseph Dion Ngute, appointed Gabriel Mbairobe to manage the tourism ministry on interim basis, Bello Bouba’s resignation was not known to the public. 

Mbairobe continues to do so alongside his position as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Will he or allies be in expected new gov’t?

Some persons are already projecting that given the calm and unusual quietness of the UNDP party and its leader, something surprising could be cooking. 

One of such surprises, some are saying, could be a return to government of either Bello Bouba or UNDP heavyweights. 

For decades, Bello Bouba has been in government alongside two other persons serving as junior ministers. This does not include the UNDP Secretary General, Pierre Ngayap, who has been consistently appointed Senator by President Biya since 2013. 

Ngayap has also been member of the Senate bureau. Given that permanent interest drives political mutations, some are remarking that the UNDP staying in government could be a foregone conclusion. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3639 of Friday November 28, 2025