Western powers have had little or no criticism of Biya over the past seven years as he crushed protests in the English-speaking minority regions jailed opposition figures including Maurice Kamto who came second in the disputed 2018 presidential election and made regular assaults on the press (AC Vol 65 No 8 Biya's government blocks bids to unite opposition)...
Jean Michel Nintcheu a parliamentarian who split from the late John Fru Ndi's Social Democratic Front set up l'Alliance politique pour le changement (APC) a coalition to build support for Professor Maurice Kamto who lost the election to Biya in 2018 and was jailed for eight months for disputing the result (AC Vol 64 No 25 No end to the legal opposition's long vigil)...
Maurice Kamto of Mouvement pour la Renaissance du Cameroun (MRC) Cabral Libii of Parti camerounais pour la réconciliation nationale (PCRN) and Joshua Osih of the historically Anglophone Social Democratic Front (SDF) are all forced into a straitjacket of conformity with the regime which bodes ill for the 2025 general election...
Once with a mere 18 seats in the previous parliament of 180 seats the SDF now has only five having been overtaken as main opposition party by Maurice Kamto's Mouvement pour la Rennaissance du Cameroun (MRC) in the 2018 election Fru Ndi having ceded leadership of the SDF to Joshua Osih his long-time deputy (AC Vol 59 No 20 Limbo after ghost elections)...
At the same time the security forces reduce the voices of peaceful dissidents to a murmur like that of opposition leader Maurice Kamto head of the Mouvement pour la Renaissance du Cameroun (MRC) party who was detained for eight months in 2019 for contesting Biya's win...
Few were surprised when President Paul Biya 85 defeated his two main challengers – Maurice Kamto from the Mouvement pour la renaissance du Cameroun (MRC) and Cabral Libii Ngue from the Univers Party – and swept to a seventh term in office...
So there was excitement when Maurice Kamto the candidate of the opposition Mouvement pour la renaissance du Cameroun and one of the Biya's main challengers declared himself the winner at a press conference held on 8 October at his party headquarters in Yaoundé and 'invited the outgoing president of the Republic to organise conditions for a peaceful political transition so as to avoid a serious post-electoral crisis that could drive it [the country] into chaos and instability'...
Others contesting against Biya this time include: Maurice Kamto former minister and founder of Mouvement pour la renaissance du Cameroun; Cabril Libii candidate for the Parti Univers and anti-corruption campaigner Akere Muna...