For the second consecutive time, heavily armed police dispersed an opposition leaders’ meeting held to propose reforms they say are needed to democratically change the more than four-decade-long rule of 88-year-old Cameroonian President Paul Biya. Opposition leaders, including three former presidential candidates, say the crackdown is the latest setback in their attempt to pave the way for peaceful transition of power from Africa’s second-longest-ruling president.

 Seven opposition leaders said they were forcefully evicted from a meeting held in Yaounde Wednesday as they were pressing for reforms to rescue elections from the strong grip of Cameroon’s long-serving president, Paul Biya. The leaders issued a formal statement on April 3. 

 Among the attendees was Prince Michael Ngwese Ekosso. He is the president of the opposition United Socialist Democratic Party and said he took part in the meeting with hopes of easing tensions after allegations of election rigging. Opposition leaders say post-election tensions have risen after claims of fraud, with results skewed toward Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party.

 “It was a need for us the political leaders to see that the electoral code resembles the aspirations of Cameroonians in general,” Ekosso said. “We are living a country where democracy is not implemented. They (the government) do not want political leaders to hold meetings and they (the police) always come to disrupt. And also, it was a need for us to be able to discuss those things that have hampered true democracy, and then talk about the need for opposition parties to be able to form a reasonable platform to address some of the key issues,” he added.

 Ekosso said the leaders avoided possible brutality and assault by peacefully leaving the hall when the police ordered an immediate stop to the meeting.

 The government said it ordered the meeting to be ended because the opposition leaders failed to obtain an authorization, as stipulated by Cameroonian law.

 Ekosso said the law requires an authorization only when there is a political rally. He said he and his peers were simply taking part in a meeting of seven opposition leaders. 

 Three candidates who lost the country’s October 7, 2018, presidential poll were in the meeting.

 Maurice Kamto, who claims he won the election and that Biya stole his victory, said the decision to stop an opposition meeting was another step in a crackdown on the democratic process. 

 Cabral Libii, a former presidential aspirant and lawmaker of the opposition Cameroonian Party for National Reconciliation, and Joshua Osih, former presidential candidate and vice president of the Social Democratic Front, said the decision to stop the meeting was an afront to democracy.

 Cameroon’s Higher Education Minister under Bia, Jacques Fame Ndongo, says there is no need for changes in the electoral code now. 

 He said Cameroonians gave Biya 71% of their votes in the 2018 presidential election, an indication that they agree with all of Biya’s policies and laws. He said people are expecting Biya to concentrate on developing Cameroon in fulfilment of the promises he made before the 2018 presidential poll.

 Ndongo said political parties can make suggestions as to the changes they want in the electoral code for Cameroon’s Parliament to examine when lawmakers deem it necessary.

 Mamoun Njoya of the Cameroon Civil Society group, which advocates for good governance in the country, says any opposition bill to change the electoral code will be thrown out of Parliament by majority lawmakers controlled by Biya.

 He said Biya and his Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party have drifted from the policy and values they promised the Cameroon people when the party was founded in 1985. He said Biya and his party are not ready to enact laws that will stop election rigging and the siphoning state funds.

 Biya has been in power in Cameroon for 45 years, seven as prime minister and 38 as president. In 2008, he removed term limits from the constitution, allowing him to serve indefinitely. 

 He has won all of Cameroon’s elections, but the opposition has always contested his victory, saying Biya prepared the electoral code to favor him and his CPDM party.

 Biya is the second-oldest serving president in sub-Saharan Africa after his neighbor, Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, who has been in power since 1979. When Biya’s latest term is finished, he would be 93 years old.

Source: VOA

Tongues have been wagging in Yaoundé following the re-election of some ailing octogenarians to the helm of Cameroon’s two houses of Parliament last month.

Recent footage from the Upper House of Parliament showed 86-year-old Senator Marcel Niat Njifenji teetering to the podium on March 18. He was going to assume office following his re-election as president of the Senate, which he has headed since it went operational in 2013.

Earlier the same day, 81-year-old Hon Cavaye Yeguie Djibril retained his position as Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament, the National Assembly, a post he has held since 1992.

Hon Nafissatou Alim, the 30-year-old Member of Parliament of Mayo Louti constituency in the North region, and her colleague, Hon Dague Aicha Blanche Jacqueline of Mayo Kani South constituency in the Far North region of the country, were both just a year old when Hon Djibril was first elected Speaker.

The two youngest MPs of the current (10th) legislative period in Cameroon assisted the eldest member and head of the provisional bureau of the Lower House of Parliament, Hon Laurentine Nkoa Mfegue, CPDM MP for the Mefou and Afamba in the Centre region in the election of the Speaker which Hon Djibril contested unopposed.

Both Senator Niat and Hon Djibril, all members of the ruling CPDM party, were earlier approved for the jobs by party leader and Cameroon president, 88-year-old Paul Biya, who is also Africa’s oldest and second longest-serving leader.

In their inaugural speeches, delivered in very faint voices, the duo thanked Biya for appointing them to the positions.

Some had expected that Biya, who in February this year said “2021 is beginning on a positive note for our youth”, would propose younger people for the posts.

Though a lone candidate, Hon Djibril garnered 147 of the 162 valid votes cast, with 15 void ballots to retain his post as Speaker of the 180-member legislative institution, making him the longest-serving House Speaker in the country.

President Biya, Mr Njifenji and Mr Djibril are in order of state protocol, the first, second and third public personalities of the country. According to the Constitution, if President Biya is incapacitated, resigns or dies, the President of the Senate will take over power.

The re-election of the octogenarian men, however, did not come as a surprise to some MPs. Hon Koupit Adamou, a member of the opposition Cameroon Democratic Union (CDU), said he was not surprised with their re-election.

Old guards in power

“Looking at how our Parliament functions since independence, you realise that those who are elected at the beginning of a legislative period like this one are re-elected each year till the end of the mandate. So, anyone who thought anything will change is naive,” he said.

Another member of the Lower House of Parliament who did not take part in the election, said if he was present, he would have still voted for Hon Cavaye because he was the party’s candidate for the post.

“Party discipline is not only in Cameroon. It is all over the world,” the MP said, explaining he was on the field doing an assignment for the ruling party when the election took place.

However, the heads of the two houses of Parliament are not the only old guards in power in the Central African country.

The police boss, Martin Mbarga Nguele, is 89; head of National Hydrocarbons Company Adolphe Mudiki is 82; Justice Minister 78; Secretary General of ruling party 77; and Environment Minister 75, among others.

In Cameroon though, the World Bank says, the median age is 18.7 years and six in every 10 people you meet is aged below 35 years, the line that defines youth. Yet the country’s most powerful positions are held by frail, elderly men.

Ruled by ‘club of friends’

According to Prof Willibroad Dze-Ngwa, a Historian and Political Scientist at the University of Yaoundé, the country is ruled by “a club of friends who have been together for more than 50 years and just share power amongst themselves.”

Mr Dze-Ngwa reckons none of the old guards wants to leave the scene before the other, except if nature intervenes.

“You can see that such is reflected not only in the National Assembly and the Senate but at every level of public administration. Let me say that I have no particular bias against these so-called old people because they have been placed there by the young people,” he said.

The young people, Mr Dze-Nwa says, have not been doing enough politics or using their numbers and youthfulness to take over leadership of the country.

“Of course, when there is such a vacuum, the octogenarians as you call them take advantage and play politics. Remember politics is coining policies to gain power and govern. So if the octogenarians have been able to dominate politics, then they are succeeding in their game and staying on,” he says.

“That is why we are taking too much time to advance in democracy, that is why the old laws in the National Assembly and the Senate cannot be changed, that is why the electoral laws in Cameroon have remained virtually the same because we have the same people who have gained so much power and want to sustain that power,” Mr Dze-Ngwa  adds.

Source: The East African