Cameroon’s President-elect, Maurice Kamto, is scheduled to hold a press conference at 2:30PM Cameroon time in the nation’s capital.

Mr. Kamto is expected to reiterate that he is the winner of the election and that the country’s election-organizing body and the constitutional council are doing everything in their power to rob the population of its victory.

Mr. Kamto who is a legal expert and a Professor of law believes in legality and will be waiting for the constitutional council to confirm him as Cameroon’s next president.

Meanwhile, as the dust raised by Prof. Kamto’s announcement about his victory in the October 7 presidential poll settles, it is slowly emerging that the country’s president, Paul Biya, is slowly showing some signs of flexibility about his retirement.

A source close to the Yaounde strong man has hinted Cameroon Concord News Group that international pressure on the 86 year-old dictator for him to accept the honorable exit proposed by Prof. Kamto has increased over the last two days following the historic announcement that might change the country’s history.

America and other Western countries, excluding France, are working hard to ensure that real political alternation is a reality in a country that has known only two presidents since independence in 1960. Western countries want to ensure that Cameroon is spared a disaster that many other African countries have experienced.

The negotiators are drawing Mr. Biya’s attention to the fact that if he refused to accept the verdict of the ballot boxes, millions of Cameroonians might take to the streets and this could result in a bloodbath that may see his ethnic group paying a huge price as it has been the greatest beneficiary of the strong man’s corruption and nepotism.

They are tactfully and skillfully advising the Yaounde strong man that he could become a hero and a globally respected statesman if you played a key role in the peaceful transfer of power in Cameroon.

Mr. Biya is also being made to understand that if he continued to be in power, the conflict in the English-speaking regions would continue and more lives would be lost.

It should be noted that the real results of the poll are now available on the Cameroon Concord News Group’s website. The results have been sent by a source that has elected anonymity.

It is gradually emerging that Prof. Kamto is the true winner of Sunday’s presidential election.

The unimpeachable source at the election-organizing body, ELECAM, who has elected anonymity, has just sent the results to the Cameroon Concord News Group.  The source says that ELECAM officials are divided on how to proceed.

Some want the results to be doctored while others argue that the real results should be published as received. There is confusion going on at ELECAM as government ministers keep on calling the election body.

By Kingsley Betek

Politician can do just about anything to ensure they clinch whatever seats they are contesting for.

Some would campaign by pouring money and other goodies such as food, clothes and decent merchandise to the electorates.

However, Cameroon President Paul Biya revolutionised the game during the final leg of his presidential campaign by distributing condoms with his face and messages calling for his re-election to citizens.

Biya, who has ruled the country for the past 35 years, or should we say his advisers thought it wise to have the words ”Je Vote Paul Biya”(I vote for Paul Biya) and a photo of the 85-yea-old president printed on both sides of the condoms.

It should be noted Cameroon will be going to the ballot to elect a new president on Sunday, October 7, and Biya’s team did all it could to remind voters to do the necessary come D-day.

His condom campaign however did not auger well with some people who claimed he should have distributed much useful things.

Others supported him saying he cared about his people and their health hence the move.

Despite the minor controversy, political analysts in the country hold that Biya is pitted to with the race yet again judging with latest poll.

Biya is Africa’s second-longest serving president having ruled Cameroon since November 1982.

Source: Tuko

An opposition contender who will seek election in Cameroon’s impending presidential polls alleged on Friday that a “massive fraud” is underway to ensure the sitting president wins a seventh term.

Maurice Kamto’s campaign chief Paul-Eric Kingue said that efforts to rig Sunday’s ballot “had the blessing” of the Elecam electoral commission.

“We won’t accept any result if this kind of fraud continues,” he said at a media briefing by Kamto’s Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) party in the capital Yaounde. Kingue called on party supporters to “fiercely resist” rigging.

The MRC has alleged that polling cards have been forged and that voter registration has been allowed to continue despite the process being officially closed. “In 62% of areas, the (ruling) Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party is still adding names to the voter roll,” said Kingue.

“But this year, 2018, will not be like 2011,” he vowed.

In the most recent presidential elections in that year, President Paul Biya won a sixth term in office with 78% of votes in polls the opposition and observers accused of being flawed. “We’re not preparing for war, but wherever there is fraud, there will be a firm response,” said Kingue.

Rumours have emerged in recent days of a possible coalition between opposition presidential contenders. Kamto’s campaign director confirmed that “talks were underway” with rival opposition hopeful Akere Muna – but Kingue was unable to confirm if a deal had been struck.

Biya, 85, has been in power for 35 years and will face-off against eight opposition contenders. The front-runners are Joshua Osih, Maurice Kamto and Akera Muna.

AFP

Elections Cameroon, ELECAM, the organizing body for the October 7 presidential elections has officially rejected the stepping down of a key candidate, Akere Muna.

Muna, one of nine candidates announced a coalition with a former minister, Maurice Kamto, late Friday. But ELECAM through a press release with hours to the vote said it rejects the move.

Muna had written to the body to officially retract his candidature but ELECAM said it was impossible to admit Muna’s request because it had no basis in law, much less with just hours to the opening of polls.

Opposition coalition shrinks after ‘growth?”

Meanwhile news that the opposition coalition in Cameroon had grown to three has since been denied by Serge Espoir Matomba, leader of the PURS. Reports suggested that he had backed the Kamto-Muna alliance.

News of his decision to step down in support of former minister Maurice Kamto had been expected through the better part of Saturday but in a Facebook LIVE posted in the evening, he denied any such alliance.

Twenty-four hours prior, Akere Muna had announced that his party hand entered an alliance with Kamto with the view of presenting a united front. The current development means that even though nine candidates are on the ballot, there are seven aspirants to choose from.

Incumbent Paul Biya is facing a stiff challenge to his over three-decades in charge. The coalition has come late in the day but some political watchers say it could prove crucial.

Source: Africa News

With less than 48 hours to Sunday’s presidential election in Cameroon, two opposition candidates have formed a coalition, according to the spokesperson of Akere Muna, one of the candidates.

“Akere Muna agrees to withdraw his candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic (…) and to support Maurice Kamto in the said elections,” said a statement signed by Akere Muna’s spokesman, Paul Mahel.

Nine candidates will run for the presidency of Cameroon on Sunday, including incumbent president Paul Biya, who has been in office since 1982.

Source: Africa News

A senior aide to President Paul Biya told Cameroon Concord News on Monday in Yaoundé that the ruling CPDM party has been in shambles since it was created in 1985. The outspoken baron who sued for anonymity also condemned President Biya for slowly but surely pushing the nation into disaster.

The French Cameroun political elite further pointed out that Francophone mediocrity has ruined the nation and sharply divided the ruling party adding that the aftermath of the October 7^th presidential election would be ‘disastrous’ if President Biya and the ruling CPDM party fails to heed the US ambassador’s advice.

Cameroon Concord News gathered from another reliable source that the CPDM is badly in need of a new leader and a new idea that can save the party from its current ill-fated flight. We understand, Biya and his gang had long planted a demon that was growing in the womb of the party for their own selfish Francophone Beti Ewondo interest.

There are fears deep within the Central Committee of the CPDM that even after the presidential elections; the ruling CPDM crime syndicate may end up without a genuine leader and without candidates at all legislative arms of government.

Our source said many elderly politicians opposed the idea of Biya seeking a 7^th term and had told the party’s Secretary General during a private Central Committee caucus meeting last year. He said President Biya was misled to believe that he was still the people’s choice.

“What happened in the meeting in Mvomeka’a was that there were people who misled Biya and the CPDM hierarchy and are using Biya’s continued stay in power to achieve their own ends. The CPDM has been in shambles in the last three decades.”

The CPDM and Biya have made promises to change the country, to restore things that were working properly under the late President Ahmadou Ahidjo and to cleanse the public service and state owned companies. But the country has now regressed to extending illegally postponing council and parliamentary elections so many times something that doesn’t exist within the constitution of the nation.

Most of the crises Cameroon now faces including the conflict in Ambazonia are as a result of CPDM internal wrangling and illegality, imposition of grassroots leaders, manipulation of the nation’s constitution and extension of tenure of mayors and MPs.

Our Yaoundé city reporter who contributed to this report observed that there are barons within the CPDM party, particularly Francophones, “You see them mostly every day coming to the Unity Palace, they feel that Cameroon belongs to them, they are closer to President Biya than any other person. They antagonize Southern Cameroonians calling them Biafra and Anglos.”

By Asu Vera Eyere with files from Rita Akana

Samuel Eto’o announced Tuesday that he will vote for incumbent President Paul Biya in the October 7th presidential election. The former captain of the Indomitable Lions spoke at the end of a meeting with the President Biya, saying that the country needed a unifying leader.

Another former captain of the Cameroon national football team Rigobert Song also made it clear that he was voting for 85-year-old Biya.

The electoral campaign is currently in full swing in Cameroon. Paul Biya, is seeking a seventh consecutive term since taking office in 1982. Eight other candidates are running for office including Cabral Libii, and opposition leaders Maurice Kamto and Joshua Osih.

For the past 2 years the country has been facing unrest due to the ongoing crisis in the English Speaking regions. However, it is generally opined that the outcome of this election is very critical to the stability of the country as any irregularities may plunge the country into a civil war.

Source: Africa News

More than 6.5 million Cameroonians will elect their next head of state this week but Paul Biya, president for 35 years, remains the front-runner despite a raging anglophone insurgency and jihadist threats. The central African nation of 25 million people has never staged polls amid insecurity so serious that the military is currently deployed to three of ten regions.

In the far north, soldiers are tackling the Nigeria-based jihadist group Boko Haram, while in the two anglophone regions its mission is to suppress a nascent secessionist insurgency. The separatists have threatened to disrupt voting in the areas where they operate, prompting security forces to fan out across those regions ahead of Sunday’s presidential election.

Yaounde has been adamant that polling will go ahead across the whole country, according to a minister, while Biya has downplayed the conflicts are mere “trouble”.

Violence in the English-speaking regions has flared since the beginning of the crisis at the end of 2016 while security forces have responded to protest action with heavy handed tactics and waves of arrests.

The unrest has killed more than 400 people this year, according to the International Crisis Group think-tank, and there has been an exodus from these regions ahead of the vote.

What began as a limited movement calling for greater economic opportunities and recognition of the English language quickly snowballed into a deadly fight between Cameroon’s military and heavily-armed separatists.

Attacks on symbols of Cameroonian authority including police killings and kidnappings of civil servants have mounted while some local officials have fled anglophone areas, fearing for their lives.

 ‘The force of experience’

Officials at the Elecam electoral commission have said that some polling stations will be “relocated” to ensure the integrity of the vote.

Despite the challenges facing the nation, Biya has drawn upon a vast network of support to ensure the ubiquity of his campaign.

Towns across the country are dotted with billboards emblazoned with Biya’s face, proclaiming him to be the “force of experience”.

At his first and so far only campaign stop, in Maroua in the far north at the weekend, Biya was feted by ministers, party flunkies and traditional leaders. His supporters appear on television daily to proclaim his accomplishments and to defend his record.

Biya’s vision for Cameroon, first published in book form in 1987, was reissued in September in time for the polls. Biya, who typically keeps a low profile, said at the Maroua campaign meeting that he would use “a firm hand and dialogue” to resolve the crisis in the anglophone region.

Eight opposition candidates will face off against Biya on Sunday – but all will confront an uphill struggle with at least one candidate accusing the incumbent of having an unfair advantage.

Unlike the three previous elections where veteran opposition chief Ni John Fru Ndi stood, the field of opposing candidates this year is wide open.

Dislodge ‘the Sphinx’

“It’s the first time in Cameroon’s history that there are opposition candidates with such clearly differentiated, truly different policies,” said Fred Eboko, a Cameroonian analyst at the French Research Institute for Development (IRD).

The candidate for the main opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) party Joshua Osih is the contender carrying the torch for Ndi. Maurice Kamto is the insurgent candidate who has never before sought elected office and could benefit if the SDF struggles to mobilise its largely anglophone base in the conflict torn English-speaking regions.

Akere Muna, a renowned lawyer, benefits from strong overseas contacts and could benefit from protest votes cast against his better-known rivals.

No opposition coalition emerged ahead of campaigning for Sunday’s polls meaning that each of the eight challengers to Biya’s 35-year rule will have a herculean task to secure the numbers required to dislodge the leader known as “the Sphinx”.

As in 2011, an opposition upset victory looks highly unlikely. In that vote, Biya won 77.98% with both Washington and Paris warning that there were “numerous irregularities” in the conduct of the polls. The opposition, the Catholic church and a number of action groups have said they will deploy observers to deter and detect vote fraud.

Whoever wins at the ballot box, the victor will face immense challenges. Just 10% of working age people are in formal employment, one-third of Cameroonians live on less than $2.30 a day, and three in four people have only known Biya as their leader.

Source: News 24

The Nkafu Policy Institute, are pleased to release a scientific, nationwide opinion pollof adult Cameroonians on the state of the economy, perceptions on governance and the democratic process, and voter preferences for the 9 presidential candidates.  This survey, conducted with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy, interviewed 2,024 adult Cameroonians in all ten regions.

Interviews were conducted in 54 urban centers and 25 rural localities from September 10 to September 20, 2018.  All interviews were conducted before the official start of presidential campaigns.  This representative sample has a margin of error of +/- 3%.

The findings reveal a country in free fall. 79.1 percent of Cameroonians believe the economy is headed in the wrong direction. The poverty level is alarming. Less than 17.65% percent of Cameroonian adults earn more than 200,000 FCFA (~$400) dollars a month. Cameroonians are mostly concerned about the state of infrastructure in the country: electricity, water, bridges, roads, railways and sea ports.

Today, 90 percent of Cameroonians believe the road infrastructure is bad or very bad. A large majority of Cameroonians (82.17 %) want local administrators such as Governors to be elected by the people.

Cameroonians have very little confidence in the legislature (only 16.31 % support the work done at the national assembly and 14.48 at the senate); supreme court (only 18.15 % of support), central government (16.93 % of support); constitutional council (16.40 % of support).

The vast majority of Cameroonians (65.04%) believe the Anglophone conflict is the greatest threat to the security of the country and most do not support the government’s war in the Northwest and Southwest regions.

Only 7.84 % percent of Cameroonians support the use of force while 85.49 % percent believe dialogue or negotiation should be the way forward. Not surprising, the incumbent president, Paul Biya, is deeply unpopular after 36 years in power, managing only 29.82%percent of support.

Three opposition candidates stand out with the young 38-year Cabral Libii among the group with 11.24 percent. The other top two candidates being Mr. Maurice Kamto(12.65 percent) of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement and Mr. Joshua Osih(13.10 percent) of the Social Democratic Front.

The top three candidates were all within the margin of error. Mr. Libii’s is mostly supported among Francophone youths where he commands 19.37 percent support among those less than 35 years old. The biggest surprise is the very poor showing from Mr. Akere Muna, with a support of only 2.12 percent.

It is very clear today that if Cameroon’s opposition parties are seriously interested in winning the single-round presidential elections scheduled for October 7, 2018, coalescing between Mr. Libii, Mr. Kamto and Mr. Osih, or only two of the three would greatly increase their chances.

One must be worried as 49.65 percent of Cameroonians are concerned of the risk of post-electoral violence.

This survey, in very simplistic terms, shows a society in deep decay, with no sense of direction and very little agreement on the most basic processes. There is great concern that at the current pace the growing tensions between communities and various political actors may degenerate into popular uprisings as societal norms continue to be eroded.

There is great need, in the lead up to this presidential election, for a stronger involvement of the international community.  It would be deeply unfortunate should the October 7 presidential elections further plunge the country deeper in crises.  Strong actions must be taken to avert this real possibility. There is great yearning for a new consensus among Cameroonians, for a new beginning.

Source: Nkafu Policy Institute