Rising Political Tensions

The disputed 2018 presidential election marked a sharp deterioration of Cameroon’s crisis, which the opposition boycott of the 2020 parliamentary and local polls has worsened. As political tensions have steadily risen, they have taken on a worrying ethnic dimension, fuelling a concomitant escalation of ethnic division between Biya’s supporters, on one hand, and those of his chief opponent Kamto, on the other.

Kamto’s Rise and the Acrimonious 2018 Election

Maurice Kamto’s rise as opposition leader is recent. In 1992, he supported what was then Cameroon’s leading opposition party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF), when it put forward John Fru Ndi for president. By 2004, however, he had joined Biya’s government as junior minister of justice. He resigned in 2011, complaining of deteriorating rule of law and development failures. The following year, he founded, and then became head of, the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC). The new party, benefitting from the SDF’s long-term decline, has become the government’s leading adversary, at least in Francophone areas, where it has attracted many former SDF backers. In the run-up to the 2018 election, Kamto won the backing of several small parties and politicians, including Akere Muna, a prominent Biya challenger, who withdrew from the race and endorsed the MRC leader. Kamto’s growing profile and apparent popularity suggested there might be a real contest, at least in large urban centres. Still, Biya’s nationwide support and control of state resources meant the opposition challenger faced an uphill struggle.

In Francophone regions, the election was largely peaceful, though shortcomings in the conduct of the campaign and vote were reportedly widespread. In some places, ruling-party members burned the MRC’s campaign materials, while in others government officials blocked its meetings. In the North, traditional elites reportedly instructed people for whom to vote (almost always the ruling party) and on election day, some people voted under the name of other registered voters without their knowledge, at times with polling agents’ complicity. 7 Despite having previously offered assurances that it would not do so, the electoral body, Elections Cameroon, placed polling stations inside a military facility in Ngaoundere and in traditional chiefs’ palaces elsewhere, where voters felt pressured to vote for the incumbent. Observers claimed that polling officers attempted to bribe them and that officials arrested opposition poll monitors. They also reported missing opposition ballots in some places, ballot stuffing and disputes over tallies.

The election outcome sparked immediate controversy. The day after voting, Kamto declared himself winner, pre-empting the official result. Two weeks later, on 22 October he Constitutional Council, the only body with a legal mandate to announce results, proclaimed Biya winner with an overwhelming 71 per cent of the vote, with Kamto coming in second with only 14 per cent. Prior to announcing the results, the Constitutional Council heard and dismissed petitions in which two opposition candidates, Kamto and the SDF’s Joshua Osih, pleaded for an annulment on grounds of violence in the Anglophone regions, widespread fraud and incorrect tallies.

With ill feelings running high, the dispute moved into the streets. Clashes pitted opposition protesters against security forces in early 2019. On 26 January, MRC supporters held protests in the political capital Yaoundé, the economic capital Douala, and Bafoussam in the Francophone West region, despite the authorities refusing to grant permission. Police and gendarmes intervened forcefully, using tear gas, water cannons and, in Douala, rubber bullets, injuring at least six demonstrators and arresting over 100.

The day after voting, Kamto declared himself winner, pre-empting the official result. Two weeks later, on 22 October he Constitutional Council, the only body with a legal mandate to announce results, proclaimed Biya winner with an overwhelming 71 per cent of the vote, with Kamto coming in second with only 14 per cent

“Dialogue” on the Anglophone Crisis and Prisoner Releases

Throughout much of 2019, the president maintained a hardline stance toward the Anglophone insurgency, despite increasing international concern. The government carried out a brutal counter-insurgency campaign while blocking and delaying dialogue initiatives. Separatists, for their part, continued to attack security forces. From the start of the conflict to September 2019, over 2,000 civilians were killed and 530,000 internally displaced, while 50,000 more sought refuge in Nigeria. In September 2019, some 700,000 children faced a fourth year without school – the separatists’ “lockdown” having shuttered schoolhouses. 28 The conflict had crippled the region’s once vibrant economy.

As the conference unfolded between 30 September and 4 October, it became clear that Biya would make no more than minor concessions. Biya’s prime minister, Joseph Dion Ngute, himself an Anglophone, presided at the event and produced a set of conclusions. These stimulated rowdy debates, but in reality had been unilaterally prepared by the government and subsequently validated by the president. The main recommendation was special status for the Anglophone regions under the constitution’s decentralisation provisions, which provide for regional councils, increased local responsibility and dedicated budgets for local development.

Political Strains Turn Ethnic

Today’s political divisions endanger decades of relative harmony among Cameroon’s different ethnicities. Despite ethnic strife during the civil war from the 1950s to the early 1970s, many Cameroonians regard the country’s diversity – it has approximately 250 ethnic groups, of which none dominates nationally – as a safeguard against communal violence. They see inflammatory language as a tool that politicians use during elections but that typically does not sour the overall climate of tolerance among ordinary people.

From the start of the conflict to September 2019, over 2,000 civilians were killed and 530,000 internally displaced, while 50,000 more sought refuge in Nigeria. In September 2019, some 700,000 children faced a fourth year without school – the separatists’ “lockdown” having shuttered schoolhouses. 28 The conflict had crippled the region’s once vibrant economy

Of late, however, political strains may be turning ethnic to some degree, as the Kamto-Biya divide sets a pro-Kamto West, inhabited mostly by Bamileke, apart from a pro-Biya Centre-South, dominated by Beti and Bulu. Ethnic discord has even seeped into the Catholic Church, which suffers disputes along these same lines. Activists linked to both the ruling party and opposition have fanned ethnic tensions by portraying their rivals as having an exclusive communal base and attributing ethnically stereotyped negative characteristics to each other.

Contrary to pro-government rhetoric, a closer look at the MRC’s leadership shows that no one ethnic group dominates the party. When Kamto was detained, his deputy, Mamadou Mota, who is not a Bamileke and who hails from Tokombere in the Far North, actively led the party. When Mota, too, was detained, a Beti woman from the Centre region, Tiriane Noah, took over. The party’s secretary general is an Anglophone from the North West. Moreover, many wealthy Bamileke continue to be a key source of funds and support for the ruling party, likely fearing that doing otherwise might jeopardise their business interests.

While political tensions have most sharply reflected rivalry between Bamileke, on one hand, and Beti and Bulu on the other, 25 April 2019 clashes in Obala, a small town 45 km from Yaoundé in the Centre region, suggest that other ethnic fault lines could open up if political turbulence continues.  During these incidents, local Beti clashed with Hausa immigrants from the North, whom locals perceive as opposition sympathisers. After one person was killed in a dispute between a Beti native and a Hausa migrant, youths from the two groups attacked each other with machetes and arrows, wounding twelve people.