2025 Presidential Election: Anybody Who Thinks That MRC Leader, Prof Maurice Kamto, Can Withdraw His Candidacy To Support Another Opposition Candidate, Is Dreaming

Prof Kamto and Hon Nintcheu created a coalition to support his candidacy in the presidential election, and he has right to do so.

MRC in reality is not warm on the idea of a single opposition candidate and transitional gov’t. 

 The party’s officials and militants argue that Bassirou Diomaye Faye who won the 2024 presidential election in Senegal, was not a unique opposition candidate

MRC officials and militants are obsessed with their belief that Kamto is the only presidential aspirant in the opposition that can beat Paul Biya, and that MRC is the leading opposition party

Keen political observers and analysts will agree that from all indications, the chances of having a single candidate, or what is commonly called unique opposition candidate at the 2025 presidential election in Cameroon, just like happened in past presidential elections since the rebirth of multiparty politics in the country, is in fact, very slim, if not impossible.  There is no doubt, that all the candidates of major opposition parties will be candidates at the 2025 presidential election, no matter what some of them say in public.

For example, anybody who thinks that the National President of MRC, Prof Maurice Kamto, can withdraw from the 2025 presidential election, to support another opposition candidate in the name of a unique opposition candidate, is simply deceiving himself.  In fact as things stand today, only a decision of Elections Cameroon (ELECAM), or the Constitutional Council, based on the provisions of the Electoral Code, can bar Kamto’s way from being a candidate at the October 2025 presidential election.

Alliance Created To Support Kamto’s Candidacy   

It was not for nothing that Maurice Kamto and Jean Michel Nintcheu in January 2024 hastily created the ‘Alliance Politique pour le Changement’, APC,  that is the, the Political Alliance for Change (in Cameroon), to support the former’s candidacy for the presidential election. It  came out clear that like at the 2018 presidential election, Kamto and his supporters see an opposition coalition for the 2025 presidential election, in the sense of other opposition parties having to lined up behind him.

Jean Michel Nintcheu who is the national coordinator of APC, even went to the extent of telling Jeune Afrique magazine that the 2018 presidential election, showed that Maurice Kamto is the only opposition leader in Cameroon today, with the capacity to beat the incumbent, Paul Biya, in an election. He said it is thus just normal, that the entire opposition should be asked to stand behind Kamto for the 2025 presidential election. Jean Robert Wafo, known to be Nintcheu’s closest collaborator for years, said in some social media posts that the 2018 presidential election was like a primary for the opposition to select their candidate for the 2025 presidential election. To him, the single opposition candidate is thus supposed to be Maurice Kamto who came second in the 2018 presidential election.

MRC Claims To Be The Leading Opposition Party

It should also be noted that MRC officials and militants have not been helping matters, as they have persistently been presenting their party as the biggest or the leading opposition party in Cameroon. In an open letter to the MRC leader, Maurice Kamto, a few weeks ago, veteran opposition politician, Djeukam Tchameni, condemned the attitude by MRC to project itself as the leading opposition party, saying that it is not helpful to efforts to seek opposition unity.

There is even the pertinent question as to the criteria that Kamto and his followers used, that made them consider MRC as the leading opposition party in Cameroon. MRC boycotted the 2020 legislative and municipal elections in the country, and thus neither have an MP nor runs a single council. So what makes them say that the MRC is the leading or biggest opposition party?  Some political analysts see this as a message by MRC, that it is will not stand behind any other party’s candidate at the 2025 presidential election, because it is the leading opposition party, and that others are rather supposed to line up behind the party’s candidate for the presidential election.

It should be noted that when for more than 20 years the SDF was being referred to as the leading opposition party in the country, it was not because the then National Chairman of  party, Ni John Fru Ndi, was always coming second in presidential elections. Rather it was because during that long period, the SDF was constantly the leading opposition party in the National Assembly, and with a parliamentary group. There is no status in Cameroon or in other countries, for somebody who comes second in a presidential election.

Similar To What Happened At 2018 Presidential Election

Meanwhile what the MRC leader and presidential aspirant, Maurice Kamto is doing today, is similar to what happened at the 2018 presidential election. At the 2018 presidential election, the population made a strong call on the opposition candidates to come together, concert, and designate one candidate amongst them to be the single opposition candidate. Maurice Kamto quickly declared himself the No. 9 player in the Cameroon national football team (indomitable Lions), adding that he was the player that would score the decisive penalty for the opposition to win the crucial match against the CPDM and its allies. By this, Kamto declared himself the opposition candidate, and went around during the presidential campaign period putting on jersey No. 9, and holding a football.

When Equinoxe Tv asked Prof Maurice Kamto in an interview during the 2018 campaign period, if on his part he could accept to withdraw his candidature to support another opposition candidate,  Kamto’s response clearly showed that there was no way he could withdraw his candidacy to support another candidate. In what was clearly a flimsy excuse, Kamto said he was designated to be the MRC candidate for the 2018 presidential election, by party’s congress. He claimed that for him to withdraw his candidacy to support another candidate, a congress of the MRC would have to be convened, for him to seek permission to withdraw his candidacy and support another candidate. He said because of the time factor that simply was not something that could be done.

 A Lukewarm Attitude On Idea Of Transition Gov’t 

MRC does not also appear to be interested in this idea of a transitional government in Cameroon. The party’s officials and militants argue that Prof Maurice Kamto whom they consider as a superman, has the capacity to put back Cameroon on the rail, without going through a transitional government.   That is why the Political Alliance for Change which supports the candidacy of the MRC dealer for the 2025 presidential election, does not talk about a transitional government. MRC officials rather try to down play the importance of a transitional government for Cameroon, after Biya.

A senior member of the MRC, Emmanuel Kougne (former SDF member), even tried in Tv debate to raise fears about the call on the opposition to have a unique candidate at the presidential election, who will create a transition government, if he wins the election.  Kougne asked what would happen, if the unique opposition’s candidate wins the presidential election, turns around and rejects the programme to set up a transitional government. It was certainly an embarrassing question to proponents of a transitional government in the Tv debate.  For one thing, the adoption of a resolution by an opposition platform or alliance, that a transitional government will be set up if their candidate wins the 2025 presidential election, is something based on a gentle man’s agreement.

Reference To 2024 Election In Senegal  

Also, talking about the opposition and the issue of a single candidate for the presidential election, MRC officials think that the party’s candidate, Maurice Kamto, can win the 2025 presidential election without being a single opposition candidate. They often make reference to the March 24, 2024 presidential election in Senegal, which was won by the Bassirou Diomaye Faye / Ousmane Sonko team, pointing out  that quite  q number of other opposition candidates including the  then Mayor of Dakar,  and even the candidate of the then ruling party, took part in the election.

Kamto Has The Right To Create A Coalition To Support His Candidacy 

Meanwhile the MRC leader, Prof Maurice Kamto, has the right like any other presidential candidate or aspirant, to create a coalition to support his candidacy at the presidential election, as he and Hon Jean Michel Nintcheu have done by creating the Political Alliance for Change (in Cameroon).  At the 2024 presidential election in Senegal for example, one of the candidates, Mohammed Dionne, created a coalition known as “Coalition Dionne 2024”, to support his candidature. Even when the former President of Senegal, Abodoulaye Wade, ran in the presidential election, he had a coalition created around his candidature.