Lessons opposition must learn from Senatorial election.

Democratic elections are excited when they are glossed with competition and lively debates on policy issues that affect the lives of the governed.

With the March 12 Senatorial poll in Cameroon, such attributes are lacking, because even the approval by elections management body, Elections Cameroon, ELECAM, of 22 lists of political parties and rejection of 10 others, just play to the gallery of mockery.

The CPDM, which controls almost all the regional and municipal councillors who form the Electoral College, will logically bulldoze its way to a landslide victory.

The opposition as a whole has few illusions. The Cameroon Renaissance Movement, CRM, one of the strongest opposition parties, which has no elected councillors, did not bother to submit a list. That was apparently done to avoid being humiliated at the polls.

Meanwhile, the other major opposition Social Democratic Front, SDF party, has been so badly annihilated by the conflict in its North West and South West fief to the advantage of the ruling party.

The SDF will take part only in the North West Region after its list in the Adamawa Region was rejected. The party did not bother to submit candidates in the South West, Littoral and West Regions where in the past it was a force to reckon with.

Like the SDF, 21 other opposition parties have been announced by the Chairman of ELECAM Board, Dr Enow Abrams Egbe, to challenge the ruling party, which victory is a foregone conclusion.

Of the 21 opposition parties in contest, only the UNDP of Bello Bouba, SDF of Ni John Fru Ndi, PCRN of Cabral Libii, FSNC of Issa Tchiroma Bakary, CDU of the late Ndam Njoya and Movement for the Defense of the Republic, MDR party of the late Diakole Diassala, can claim to be political parties with some grassroots following. The UPC is in that category, but internal wranglings made its lists to be disqualified.

Disunity and infighting are not only in the UPC. There are reflected on the entire Cameroon opposition parties, which leaders want to die on the throne, if that is what it is.

Each dreams to be a presidential candidate even when deep down their conscience they know they have no following, not even a manifesto for governance.

They just want to be noticed through the social media, empty press releases and conferences in the hope President Biya can appease some of them with ministerial appointments.

The real opposition parties and leaders of mettle are known even from their vision, focus and evaluation of national and international issues. They have been tried in past elections and the electorate know them.

But to progress, they need unity. What is the point for the UNDP, MDR and FNSC contesting individually in the Northern Regions against the CPDM when they can unite and give the ruling party a tough run for its money?

Why should the Union of Socialist Movement, UMS, not team up with the UDC in the West Region to battle it out with the ruling party?

As it stands, the CPDM is in a one horse race. What to watch will be the 30 Senators their natural president and Head of State, President Paul Biya, will appoint from the opposition to give the Senate a semblance of multi-partism.

Also, of attention after the election, will be the renewal or not of the mandate of the current Senate President, Marcel Niat Njifenji, 88.

What the credible and genuine opposition, not the paper tiger parties, should, however, learn from the Senatorial…election is that they need unity in the other imminent polls, especially as it is within the prerogative of the incumbent to precipitate them.

Elections give opposition leaders the opportunity to contest for power, but they also present them with the task of effectively mobilising supporters and coordinating with numerous other parties and organisations that may not share common political objectives.

As research and experience have indicated in Africa, opposition unity is crucial in building parties to attend wide geographic reach to swell the number of voters.

Unity is also critical for determining candidate entry so that opposition parties do not undercut each other by splitting the vote to the advantage of the ruling party as has been observed in Cameroon since the first multiparty polls in the nineties.

What is happening with the Cameroon opposition is starkly an illustration of disunity, self-criticism, divisions and egoism, rather than forming pre-electoral coalitions. Instead, it is the ruling party that is known to form alliance with the so-called "presidential majority".

No genuine democracy can serve the governed well without an effective opposition. In Cameroon, that opposition does not exist with over 300 family-size outfits passing for parties.

However, there are a few which are represented in the councils and parliament, including the MRC, which boycotted such elections but proved its sturdy clout in the presidential election. They stand no chance of winning and may have to lobby President Biya to appoint some of them among the 30 Senators he is legally entitled to do so.

But that will not indicate their strength and raison d'être of any political party. They need to unite before the 2025 presidential poll to become relevant.

A study of 800 political parties in 17 sub-African countries including Cameroon by Jennifer Gandhi Grant Buckles titled ‘Opposition Unity and Cooptation in Hybrid Regimes’, shows that it is only "when opposition parties form electoral alliances, that they are sometimes able to dislodge long-time incumbents from power".

At The Guardian Post, we hold the strong opinion that without that, their existence is only a hindrance to the amelioration of the nascent democratisation process in Cameroon.