Paul Biya’s silence is becoming a political statement in its own right. A year after his so-called re-election, his ruling CPDM party remains without a clear public timetable for next year’s polls. The party that has dominated Cameroon for decades appears increasingly uncertain about the political calendar, while its own political bureau and its own Central Committee reportedly feels sidelined by a presidency increasingly associated with the powerful Minister-Secretary General, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh. That is not a normal situation for a ruling party.

In a political system built around the authority of one man, presidential silence cannot easily be dismissed as an accident, an oversight or mere administrative delay. When the head of state says little at precisely the moment when his party, government and electorate need clarity, the silence itself acquires meaning.

Biya’s silence is not accidental. It is deliberate in its political effect, whether or not its original cause is known.

For months, Cameroonians have been left to speculate. Is Biya preparing a major political decision? Is there a struggle over succession and control of the electoral timetable? Has power increasingly shifted toward those operating around the Unity Palace? Or is Biya simply unable, unwilling or not yet ready to publicly address the questions confronting his party and country?

The authorities have offered little that convincingly settles these questions. And that vacuum matters and includes the passing into eternity on Sunday of Clément Atangana, president of Cameroon’s Constitutional Council in France.

In politics, information does not disappear simply because a government refuses to provide it. It is replaced by speculation. The longer the silence continues, the more room there is for rumours to become political narratives. This is particularly true when the speculation concerns the president’s health.

It would be irresponsible to present rumours about Paul Biya’s health as established fact without credible evidence. But it would be equally irresponsible for the authorities to ignore the political consequences of a prolonged absence of presidential communication. When a president becomes unusually silent, when his ruling party appears uncertain about its own timetable and when questions about who is actually driving decisions begin to dominate public discussion, the government cannot reasonably expect citizens to remain indifferent.

We of the Cameroon Concord Group believe and fervently too that silence does not prove illness. But silence can make the speculation about illness harder to contain. That is the uncomfortable political reality facing the Biya system today in Yaounde.

The CPDM’s apparent unease is therefore significant. A ruling party even in North Korea or Iran should not have to guess about the intentions of the president under whose authority it operates. Its militants, officials and potential candidates need clarity. The electorate deserves clarity. The state itself requires clarity.

Instead, Cameroon appears to be drifting into another period in which uncertainty at the top is becoming a political fact. And the deeper problem is not simply whether Paul Biya is healthy or ill. The deeper problem is that Cameroon has built a political system so heavily dependent on one individual that even his silence can produce institutional paralysis and national anxiety. That is the real indictment.

If Biya is fully in command, he can end the speculation with a clear political message. If important decisions are being prepared, the public deserves to know enough to understand the direction of the country. If the CPDM has a timetable, it should not have to discover it through rumours or leaks. And if there are genuine concerns about the president’s capacity to govern, the responsibility of the state is not to hide behind silence but to provide institutional clarity.

After more than four decades at the centre of Cameroonian politics, Paul Biya knows better than all of us in the Concord Group that presidential silence is never politically empty. Every day that it continues, it says something. The question is no longer simply what is Paul Biya going to say? The more consequential question is why is a president whose political authority has shaped Cameroon for so long choosing not to say it? Until that question is answered, speculation will continue to fill the vacuum. And increasingly, Biya’s silence itself is becoming the story.

To this I put my name

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

There comes a point in the life of every political movement when slogans cease to be enough. Promises lose their force, explanations become repetitive and citizens begin to judge their government not by what it says it will do, but by what they can actually see, touch and experience.

For Cameroon’s ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), that moment deserves serious national reflection.

The CPDM was born in Bamenda in March 1985, presenting itself as a new political vehicle for a changing Cameroon. More than four decades later, the party remains at the centre of national political life. Its own anniversary communications continue to associate it with unity, stability, peace and development.

But political longevity inevitably raises a fundamental question: what has all those years in power delivered and what remains to be delivered?

This question cannot be answered by another slogan. It cannot be answered by another promise that development is just around the corner. It cannot be answered by another ceremony, another speech, another political rally or another appeal for patience.

A government that has governed for decades must ultimately be judged against measurable outcomes: employment, electricity, roads, health care, education, security, public services, economic opportunity and the confidence citizens have in their institutions. But Cameroon’s challenges remain substantial.

The International Monetary Fund reported in 2025 that Cameroon needed stronger action on revenue mobilization, financial-sector vulnerabilities, public-financial management and governance including anti-corruption measures. Its 2026 assessment also noted slower growth in 2025, fiscal deterioration and continuing risks associated with reduced aid flows, security challenges and climate pressures.

This is not an argument that nothing has been achieved. There have been investments and areas of economic progress. The African Development Bank, for example, reports continued growth in 2025, supported by sectors including energy, construction and agrifood industries.

But the existence of projects and economic growth does not eliminate the larger political question: are Cameroon’s institutions and political leadership producing results commensurate with the country’s needs and potential? That is the question Cameroonians have every right to ask.

The danger for the ruling CPDM party now is that its political language has eventually become detached from the lived experience of ordinary Cameroonians.

When citizens repeatedly hear about Emergence 2030 while confronting unemployment, difficult public services, insecurity, inadequate infrastructure or limited economic opportunities, political rhetoric begins to lose credibility!

That is where the Cameroon Concord phrase “the CPDM has exhausted its lies” becomes politically powerful—not necessarily as a literal claim that every statement made by every CPDM official is false, but as a description of political exhaustion.

It is vital to state in this editorial that a governing party can exhaust the persuasive power of its old explanations long before it exhausts its ability to govern. That distinction matters. Cameroon does not need another generation of politics built primarily around defending the past. It needs a very serious conversation about the future.

There is also a new reality beyond Cameroon’s borders. International assistance can no longer be treated as an unlimited safety net. The IMF reported that major development partners including the United States, Britain, France and Germany had announced significant reductions in foreign-aid budgets for 2025–27 with potential consequences for Cameroon’s finances and development program.

At the same time, European institutions are committing substantial resources to Ukraine and responding to humanitarian crises in the Middle East and elsewhere. That does not mean Europe or the United States have abandoned Cameroon: the European Union, for example, continues to support Cameroon through its Global Gateway program and has allocated €244 million in grant funding for its 2021–27 partnership.

But the lesson is clear. Cameroon cannot build its future on the assumption that external partners will continually finance development shortfalls. The country must increasingly generate its own prosperity, strengthen its institutions, mobilize domestic resources and create an environment in which citizens and businesses can invest with confidence.

The real test is political credibility. The 2025 presidential election demonstrated that Cameroon remains deeply politically contested. Paul Biya was officially declared the winner with 53.66% of valid votes, while opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma rejected the result and claimed victory. Reuters reported allegations of irregularities and subsequent tensions, while noting that the government rejected those allegations.

Whatever one’s political position, this should lead to a sober conclusion: Political legitimacy cannot depend indefinitely on electoral victory alone. It must also be reinforced by public confidence in institutions, transparency, accountability and credible alternatives. The responsibility therefore extends beyond the CPDM.

Opposition parties and political movements must also demonstrate that they possess more than anger with the incumbent. They must present credible program, competent leadership, internal democracy, realistic economic plans and a convincing vision for a peaceful political transition.

Cameroon cannot afford a politics in which one side merely promises continuity while the other promises change without explaining how that change will be responsibly delivered. The country needs something more demanding: credible political actors capable of turning public frustration into constructive national reform.

The warning signs must not be ignored. The greatest danger is not that one political party may lose its political dominance. The greater danger is that citizens are losing faith in the country’s political system.

When people conclude that elections do not meaningfully change their circumstances, that political promises are interchangeable and that institutions are incapable of responding to their grievances, frustration can migrate from the ballot box into the streets. That is where political systems become vulnerable and that is what we are witnessing today in Anglophone Cameroon.

Cameroon therefore needs political competition that is credible, peaceful and substantive. It needs elections in which citizens can make meaningful choices. It needs institutions capable of commanding confidence across political, regional and generational divides. And it needs leaders prepared to accept accountability for both their promises and their failures.

The next chapter of Cameroon’s political history should not be about whether the CPDM can repeat the arguments that sustained it for decades.

It should be about whether Cameroon can produce a political culture in which performance matters more than slogans, institutions matter more than personalities, and the future matters more than the political mythology of the past.

The CPDM has governed Cameroon for more than four decades. That history cannot simply be erased and neither should every achievement associated with it be dismissed.

But history is not a governing program. Past victories do not constitute future solutions. And political patience is not infinite.

The central question facing Cameroon is therefore no longer simply who has governed the country longest. It is whether the political class—government and opposition alike—can convince a new generation that politics can still deliver security, dignity, opportunity and accountable government.

That is the test. And Cameroon cannot afford to fail it.

To this I put my name

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai