2025 Presidential Election: PATRICIA NDAM NJOYA’S CDU, ISSA TCHIROMA BAKARY’S FSNC, PIERRE KWEMO’S UMS, And Three Other Parties, Launch An Opposition Coalition

Five of the six political parties of the coalition are represented in councils, while three have MPs. This is the first real coalition of opposition parties for the 2025 presidential election.

The coalition which is an initiative of the CDU leader, Mayor PATRICIA TOMAINO NDAM NJOYA, was in fact  in the pipeline since last year. MRC, SDF and PCRN did not respect the invitations they received to attend the meeting to launch the new opposition coalition.

MAURICE KAMTO’S MRC and others that had been separately trying to woo ISSA TCHIROMA BAKARY should definitely be disappointed.

Leaders of six opposition parties that include UDC, FSNC, MP, USDP, PAL and UMS, and some of their close collaborators, silently planned, as well as silently participated, at an important meeting which lasted six hours, in a hotel in the nation’s capital, Yaounde, on Saturday, July 5, 2025, ending with the creation of what is considered as the first veritable coalition of opposition parties, for the 2025 presidential election.

However contrary to what some people are saying, the newly created group is a coalition of a number of opposition parties that, will designate their candidate for the 2025 presidential election. It is not a group that is working on the political project to designate a single opposition candidate for the presidential election, which looks more like a pipedream in Cameroon.

Almost all of the six political parties, that are members of the coalition, can be presented as parties that have a base, as five of them are represented in municipal councils. The five parties are Pierre Kwemo’s UMS, Celestin Bedzigui’s PAL, Issa Tchiroma Bakary’s FSNC, Hilaire Dzipan’s MP, and Patricia Ndam Njoya’s UDC. Also, three of the six political parties are represented in the National Assembly. The parties include Patricia Ndam Njoya’s UDC that has 4 MPs, Issa Tchiroma Bakary’s FSNC that has 3 MPs, and Pierre Kwemo’s UMS that has 2 MPs.

Members Of The Coalition To Designate Presidential Candidate

According to Hon Adamou Koupit of CDU, who accompanied her party leader, Mayor Patricia Tomaino Ndam Njoya to the July 5 meeting, the newly created opposition coalition is open to all opposition parties that are interested to come onboard the platform. He says the presidential candidate of the coalition will be designated by members, or better still, by political parties that are members of the coalition.  One of the things that were accomplished by the July 5 meeting was that the participants adopted the criteria that would be used to select or designate the candidate of the opposition for the 2025 presidential election.  Members of the new coalition also fixed a calendar of their meetings, with the possibility of modifications whenever the need arise, conserving that the country is already in the election period.

It should be noted that at least five of the six leaders of political parties that are members of the coalition, are presidential aspirants, or better still, they have already declared their candidacies for the 2025 presidential election. It should as well be noted that the three major opposition parties that were invited to the July 5 meeting, either ignored the meeting or failed to respect the invitations. The parries are MRC, SDF and PCRN. However it is said that the doors of the coalition remains open to them.  Talking about Maurice Kamto’s MRC, there is a coalition known as the Political Alliance for Change which has as National Coordinator, Hon Jean Michel Nintcheu, which was created in January 2024 to support the candidacy of the MRC leader, Prof Maurice Kamto, at the 2025 presidential election. So in reality inviting the MRC or Kamto to join any alliance or coalition, is a waste of time.

The New Coalition Was In The Pipeline Since Last Year

It should be noted that the newly created opposition coalition, which is the initiative of the CDU leader and Mayor of Foumban, Madam Patricia Tomaino Ndam Njoya, was in the pipeline since last year. In fact sometime last year, the CDU leader, Patricia Ndam Njoya, travelled to Douala and silently convened a closed door meeting with some opposition leaders, and proposed a political project to create an opposition coalition for the 2025 presidential election.  She however never talked to the media about her proposal to create a coalition for the 2025 presidential election. It was rather the Douala based leader of MP, Hilaire Dzipan, who was one of those that was invited to the meeting, that later made the disclosure to the media. But since then, nothing was heard again about that initiative by Mayor Patricia Ndam Njoya.

However Madam Ndam Njoya was silently working on the project with others, though some of the party leaders she invited to the Douala meeting last year, a few months ago were part of those that created the controversy – packed Douala Group a few months ago, to work on the political project to designate a single candidate for the opposition at the 2025 presidential election.

It should be noted that some criticisms have already been made on the social media about the new opposition coalition, that there are some members that are close to the regime. Those who made the criticisms should likely be talking about the National President of PAL and Deputy Mayor of Monatele Council, Celestin Bedzigui. However there is no doubt that the other members know Bedzigui, and will definitely know how to treat him, is there is anything suspicion.

 National President Of MRC, Issa Tchiroma Bakary

Meanwhile, there is no doubt that the decision by the National President of FSNC, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, to instead be part of the new coalition of opposition parties for the 2025 presidential election, that was  formally created in Yaounde in the evening of Saturday, July 5, 2025, has created disappointment in some camps.   It should be noted there was a lot of talk or propaganda  both on the social and traditional media, of a possible North –  South Coalition for the 2025 presidential election, as being a coalition of the MRC leader, Maurice  Kamto, with Issa Tchiroma Bakary of FSNC, and the UNDP leader, Bello Bouba Maigari.  When an MRC delegation headed by the 1^st Vice President of the party, Mamadou Mota, met Issa Tchirma last week,  the headline story of some media organs close to the MRC,  talked of how MRC  and Issa  Tchiroma were communion. But a few days later, Issa Tchiroma signed with five other party leaders, the creation of the new coalition of opposition parties.

Nintcheu –  Kamto’s Political Alliance For Change / Abdouraman Hamadou Babba

But it should be recalled that when the leader of FSNC, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, resigned from Government later last month, he came out in a video message in which he among other things disclosed that his wish was to see the opposition come together in a coalition, and designate a candidate that will face the candidate of the CPDM, at the 2025 presidential election.  But what the MRC was trying to lobby Issa Tchiroma to accept, was that  Tchiroma’s FSNC should join the Political Alliance for Change, that was created by Hon Jean Michel Nintcheu of FCC and Prof Maurice Kamto’s of MRC, to support the candidature of the MRC leader, at the 2025 presidential election. Issa Tchiroma did not buy that idea. It should be noted that the revived Douala Group also met Issa Tchiroma in Yoaunde late last week, and presented their project for a single opposition candidate for the presidential election. But Issa Tchiroma was seemingly not impressed with the Douala Group which is surrounded with many controversies.

Meanwhile, a well – known political actor of the Grand North, Abdouraman Hamadou Babba, who was pro – Kamto, had seemingly made the MRC to believe that a North –South Coalition for the presidential election, comprised of Maurice Kamto’s MRC, Bello Bouba Maigari’s UNDP and Issa Tchiroma Bakary’s FSNC, with Maurice Kamto as the presidential candidate, was possible.  But apparently after realizing that such a coalition could not work, Abdouraman surprised many last week by declaring his candidacy for the 2025 presidential election, just a few months to the election. He says he will run as an independent candidate.