Cameroon
Cameroon exhibits low-range performance in Representation, Rights and Rule of Law, and it performs in the mid-range in Participation. The country falls among the bottom 25 per cent of countries with regard to most factors of democracy. Over the past five years, Cameroon has experienced notable advances in Basic Welfare but has also experienced significant declines in Credible Elections. It is classified as a lower-middle income country and has a diversified economy, which includes agriculture, mining, services, and production of oil and gas, timber and aluminium. Crude oil is its largest export.
Cameroon’s political system has been dominated by the hegemonic Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) under President Paul Biya, who has been in power since 1982. Over the past four decades, Biya has used constitutional and electoral manipulation, co-optation of opponents, massive use of state resources for political patronage and the development of a robust state security and intelligence apparatus to gradually assert virtually total control of the political landscape. Opposition movements are institutionally weak, and divided into more than 300 political parties. Since 2018, the regime has become increasingly authoritarian, a trend marked by state security agencies’ repression of perceived political opponents. This has been most evident regarding the routine arrest and abuse of leaders and members of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM), as well as activists and perceived sympathisers of Anglophone separatist groups. Furthermore, anti-government protests are categorically banned.
Cameroon is an ethnically diverse country, home to almost 250 ethnic groups. Biya has established a multi-ethnic coalition by incorporating most ethnic groups into the ruling framework. Regardless, Biya is accused of using his extensive discretionary powers to appoint members of his native Beti-Bulu ethnic group to key positions. Language is a more significant political cleavage than ethnicity, and Cameroon’s English-speaking regions in the northwest and southwest, which were administered by the British as part of Nigeria and only joined Cameroon in 1961, are opposed to the state’s abolition of the previous federal system. Longstanding perceptions of multifaceted discrimination toward Anglophones led to calls for the establishment of an independent English-speaking state. This in turn led to the outbreak of a conflict between Anglophone separatist groups and the army in 2016. The conflict is multi-layered and has called into question the notion of national unity and has challenged the current nature of governance and form of the state. Female representation in parliament has grown in the past four elections, yet women continue to face discrimination, with high levels of gender-based violence and lower literacy and labour force participation rates than their male compatriots.
Biya’s succession is the country’s most significant near-term political issue. His current mandate is set to finish in 2025. He has not chosen a successor and open lobbying to replace him is taboo within the CPDM. The military has stayed largely out of political activity, but the army has demonstrated significant loyalty to Biya. It will also be important to see if the government will enact any electoral reforms before the 2025 election and to evaluate how this might impact the credibility of the electoral process. Pursuing effective decentralisation, which is ongoing, at the local and regional levels will be an important step towards improving overall governance and resolving issues pertaining to political exclusion voiced by the opposition and minority groups.
Monthly Event Reports
March 2024 | Cameroon’s government bans opposition coalitions ahead of 2025 elections
In a press release dated 12 March, Cameroon’s Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, declared two coalitions of opposition political parties to be illegal. Minister Nji said the Political Alliance for Change (APC) and the Alliance for a Political Transition in Cameroon (ATP), two new and important opposition groupings, did not meet the legal definition of a political party and were therefore prohibited from carrying out political activities, including holding public meetings and demonstrations. The declaration was contested by activists, who asserted that Cameroonian law did not prevent political parties from forming coalitions. According to Human Rights Watch, an NGO, the ban represented an attempt by state authorities ‘to close down space for the opposition and for public debate ahead of the 2025 presidential elections.’
November 2023 | Massacre in south-western village marks a month of increasing violence
After several months in which the level of violence in the long-running conflict between anglophone separatists and the central government of Cameroon had decreased, there was a significant increase in violence in November. In one particularly notable event on 6 November, gunmen identified in press reports as anglophone separatists killed at least 20 people in the village of Egbekaw, in south-western Cameroon. The attack took place on the 41st anniversary of the beginning of President Paul Biya’s rule.
May 2023 | Increasing violence between separatists and government
Three incidents in May indicated an increasing intensity in the conflict between Anglophone separatists and the central government in Cameroon that has been ongoing since 2017. On 2 May, a group of 15 separatists was reported to have attacked a military outpost in a village 40 kilometres from the city of Douala, killing five soldiers and one civilian. This attack was the closest yet to the country’s major port and economic hub. On 8 May, a journalist named Anye Nde Nsoh was murdered in Bamenda in what the separatists later claimed was a case of mistaken identity. A separatist leader subsequently threatened to arrest any journalist who protested against Nsoh’s killing. This is the third murder of a journalist in Cameroon in 2023. Two weeks later, a group of 30 women who had protested against a rebel group’s collection of taxes from the local population in the Nort-West region village of Kedjom Keku were kidnapped and mistreated. They were released after being held for one week.
March 2023 | Ruling party wins all seats in Senate in indirect election
An indirect election for seats in the Senate of Cameroon was held on 12 March. Of the 100 seats in the Senate, 30 are filled by direct appointments by the President, and the remaining 70 are filled through this indirect election. The members of municipal and regional councils constitute an electoral college that selects these 70 members of the Senate to represent the ten regions of the country. Following its broad victory in the last regional elections (2020), the party of President Paul Biya (the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement -- RDPC) won all 70 of the seats. It is expected that President Biya will also select members of this party for the remaining 30 seats. Challenges to the election filed by three opposition parties were dismissed by the Constitutional Council on 21 March. The representation of women is likely to slightly improve as 26 women won seats (up from 22 in the last election).
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