2025 Presidential Election: Why Hon Joshua Osih, Hon Cabral Libii, Barrister Akere Muna, And Perhaps Mayor Patricia Ndam Njoya, Will All Be Candidates

Only ELECAM or the Constitutional Council, can in application of the provision of the Electoral Code, bar the way to any of them from being a presidential candidate

Just like in past presidential elections in Cameroon since the rebirth of multiparty politics, there will be no single opposition candidate at the 2025 presidential election

 The SDF leader, Joshua Osih, and the PCRN leader, Cabral Libii, will likely create coalitions to support their candidacies like the MRC leader has done.  

 The National President of PCRN, Hon Cabral Libii Ngue, was on May 23, 2025 formally designated as his party’s flag bearer or candidate for the 2025 presidential election in Cameroon. This was on the first day of the 2^nd ordinary national congress of PCRN, which held at Nki Hotel, Nkolo III in Nkolafamba, Mefou and Afamba Division in the Centre Region. Interestingly enough, this was the first time since the rebirth of multiparty politics in Cameroon 35 years ago, that a major political party held its national congress in a rural area, though Nkolofamba is not that far from Yaounde.

Meanwhile Cabral Libii was voted by acclamation at the PCRN’s congress to be the party’s presidential candidate, because he was the only candidate in the party who sent in his file to the organizing committee, to run for the party’s ticket.  The designation of Cabral Libii as the presidential candidate of PCRN for the 2025 presidential election did not come as a surprise to political observes. He had for a longtime repeatedly declared both at home and aboard, that he would be a candidate at the 2025 presidential election in Cameroon.

At the swearing –in ceremony of the new President of Senegal Bassirou Diomaye Faye, to which he was invited last year, Cabral Libii declared to the international media that he made his first attempt to be become President of Cameroon at the 2018 presidential election but did not succeed, and that he will run again in the 2025 presidential election. He saluted the election of the youthful Bassirou  Diomaye Faye, as President of Senegal, and said it was time that the youthful generation of Africans takeover the batons of leadership in their countries.

First Press Conference After 2020 Legislative And Municipal Elections  

It will be recalled that in his first press conference after the 2020 legislative and municipal elections, the National President of PCRN, Cabral Libii, stressed that all MPs, mayors and councilors of the party, had an obligation to work very hard to fulfill the party’s campaign promises to the people. He explained that their achievements will be what the party will present to the population during campaigns for the 2025 presidential election, as proofs that the PCRN respects campaign promises, and that the party’s candidate would deliver if given the confidence by the people to be the next President of the Republic. So, Cabral Libii had long made his ambition to run for 2025 presidential election, known. All what he a times say in public on the possibility of him supporting a unique candidate of the opposition for the presidential election, is just politics.

Akere Muna’s Biggest Political Ambition

There is also the case of Akere Muna, the 2025 presidential candidate of Prosper Nkou  Mvondo’s ‘Parti Univers’.  Muna’s biggest political ambition is to be the unique opposition candidate at the 2025 presidential election, and then be the President of transitional government if he is elected. But there is a problem in the way he is going about it. Akere Muna seems to think, that he is the only person with the capacity to be a good or credible President of a transitional government.

Muna wants to be the candidate of a big opposition alliance that can win the presidential election, for him to be the President of the transitional government. But from the look of things, he is not prepared to support another candidate. More so, Muna contributed to the apparent death of the Alliance for a Peaceful Transition in Cameroon, by striking a deal with Nkou Mvondo to pull out his ‘Parti Univers’ from the alliance, and  he was well aware that the alliance depended on Nkou Mvondo’s party to give investiture to the candidate that the platform would designate.

Akere Muna’s candidacy for the 2025 presidential election, is supported by a number of small political parties and factions, as well as by his NOW Movement which is a civil society organization. Despite the media propaganda, the chances that Akere Muna will even be among the frontline or major candidates at the 2025 presidential election is very slim. He is so far not supported by any major opposition party or party with a large following, and it is very unlikely that any of the major opposition parties will support his candidacy in the election. Muna was the other day in Tombel on the invitation of the People’s Action Party, PAP, which supports his candidacy for the 2025 presidential election. But then how many militants have PAP?

The SDF Leader And Presidential Candidate, Is Clear On His Position   

As for the presidential candidate of the SDF, Hon Joshua Nambangi Osih, who is also the National Chairman of  the party, his position is clear that he will be a candidate at the 2025 presidential election. Osih appears not to have any iota of conviction that the idea of a single opposition candidate cannot work in the Cameroon of today, given the current political context. He thus appears to think that it is a waste of time, to spend time discussing the political project (single candidate), and that the issue of a unique opposition candidate today is thus more of a distraction. From the look of things, Osih will rather prefer to form a coalition of some opposition parties, to support his candidacy at the presidential election. He is known to have established a partnership between the SDF and some syndicates. To the SDF leader and presidential candidate, what serious opposition parties can do for the 2025 presidential election, is to come together, and map out strategies on effective collaboration at the presidential election, like to  collaborate in the fight against electoral fraud.

Meanwhile militants of other opposition parties, do think that the SDF has the tradition of never accepting to support or stand behind the candidate of another opposition party at the presidential election. It is being recalled that during political debates on Tv / Radio on the issue of a unique opposition candidate in the past, officials and militants of the SDF would repeatedly point out that their party was the leading opposition party in the country, and would then argue that normally it is the trailer that pulls a car and not vice versa. This meant that that a small party was normally supposed to stand behind the candidate of a big party at the presidential election, and not vice versa.   It would also be recalled that the opposition came close to having a single candidate at the 2004 presidential election. But when the group that was working on the project ended up designating the then CDU leader, Dr Adamou Ndam Njoya as the opposition candidate, the then SDF leader, Ni John Fru Ndi, and his close collaborators that accompanied him, stormed out of the hall. Again, SDF militants argued that it is a trailer to pull a car and not vice versa.

The CDU Leader And Presidential Candidate

Not much has been heard on this issue of a single opposition candidate from the presidential candidate of the CDU, Mayor Hermine Patricia Tomaino Ndam Njoya, who is also the leader of the party. This is also her first time of being her party’s presidential candidate. It was her husband and former CDU President, Dr Adamou Ndam Njoya (now of blessed memory), that used to be the presidential candidate of the CDU.  So far, it is not clear to political observers and analysts whether Patricia Ndam Njoya is somebody that can withdraw her candidacy to support another presidential candidate of the opposition.

But if Mrs Ndam Njoya were to follow the same path that the late husband used to take, then we can conclude that  she is very unlikely to accept any proposal that she withdraws her candidacy to support the candidate of another opposition party. Back in 1992, CDU was a member of the Union for Change, a coalition of some opposition parties and civil society organizations.  But when Union for Change designated Ni John Fru Ndi of the SDF as the presidential candidate, the CDU stormed out of the coalition, and Ndam Njoya declared his candidacy for the presidential election.

Even at the 2018 presidential election, it was indisputable that the CDU leader, Dr Adamou Ndam Njoya, had a serious health problem. He could not lead his campaign for the presidential election as in the past, and in fact he made only one brief appearance during the campaign, and that was in his native Foumban. He looked very fail.  But rather than decide that the CDU should support another opposition candidate at the presidential election, Ndam Njoya maintained his candidacy in the election.

However as aforementioned, it remains to be seen if the present CDU leader and presidential candidate, Mrs Ndam Njoya, is somebody that can accept to withdraw her candidature from the presidential election race, to support another opposition candidate.