Joe Dinga Pefok (Uncle Joe)
Some MRC Members Led By Willy MENGUE, Who Contest The Legality Of The Convention Of The Party That Was Held By Videoconference On December 21, 2025, And The Legibility OF Maurice KAMTO Who Ran For Re-election To The Post Of National President, Have Gone To Court. The Case Opened At The Yaounde –Ekounou Magistrate Court On July 9, 2026.
It has become like a tradition in Cameroon that, all major opposition parties, sooner or later along the line, plunge into serious crisis. In almost all, or if not all of these crises, the opposition parties concern either rightly or wrongly, always see the “destabilizing hands” of the CPDM regime, behind the scene.
Political observers think that the CDPM regime is in fact always involved, one way or the other, in the crises in major opposition parties.. There are cases where members of the CPDM regime initiate plots, and strike deals with some senior members of opposition parties, to provoke or spark a situation of crisis in their parties, so as destabilize, split or weaken them.
There are other cases where the CPDM regime in reality, has no hand in the origin of crises that spark up in some opposition parties, but when the crises erupt, the regime tries to exploit the situation by fanning the internal conflicts, in a bid to destabilize, split, weaken or even destroy the parties. However it is not only the CPDM or a ruling party that does this. Ruling and opposition parties across the world, play this game. It is certain that if there is a serious crisis in the ruling CPDM Party, the opposition parties in Cameroon will not just watch. Rather, they will definitely try to fan it, with the hope that it might destabilize or even destroy the CPDM.
Crisis In The MRC
One of the frontline opposition parties in the country, MRC, which was created less than 15 years ago, has now plunged into a crisis. A heated dispute that sparked off late last year in the party, over the December 21, 2025 Extraordinary Elective Convention of the party, has now degenerated and plunged the party into a crisis.
As regard what led to the crisis, it would be recalled that Prof Maurice Kamto, National President of MRC, officially resigned from both his post and the party on June 25, 2025, in a bid to run for the October 12, 2025 presidential election, on the ticket of another party, MANIDEM. This was because his party, MRC, that boycotted the last legislative and municipal elections, which held on February 9, 2020. Consequently, MRC does not have representatives in parliament, and is also not represented in any municipal council in the country. And so going by the Electoral Code, the MRC could not officially or legally give investiture to a candidate to run for the 2025 presidential election in Cameroon.
So the MRC National President, Maurice Kamto, who was also designated as the party’s candidate for the 2025 presidential election, at the party’s national convention which held in Yaounde in December 2023, had to leave the MRC Party in June 2025 for the MANIDEM Party of Anicet Ekane, in a bid to get investiture to be a candidate in the October 12, 2025 presidential election. Ekane effectively gave Kamto MANIDEM’s investiture, to be the party’s candidate at the presidential election. Unfortunately a rancourous conflict between Anicet Ekane and a former President of MANIDEM, Dieudonne Yebga, was exploited by the regime to push the Constitutional Council to reject the candidacy of Kamto for the October 12 presidential election. The pretext was that there was multiplicity of candidacies from MANIDEM, for the October 12 presidential election. Suffice to say that the Constitutional Council on August 5, 2025 rejected Maurice Kamto’s candidacy, for the October 12, 2025 presidential election.
Kamto Returns To MRC
According to a correspondence that was addressed to the National President of MANIDEM (Ekane Anicet,),by Prof Maurice Kamto, he formally left MANIDEM on September 11, 2025, and returned to MRC. The official leader of the MRC throughout Kamto’s purported absence from the party, was the Acting President, Mamadou Mota, who was the 1st Vice President in Kamto’s team. The renowned Law Professor, Maurice Kamto , upon his ‘return to MANIDEM, had to wait for an avenue to formally return to the post of National President of MRC, considering that he ‘resigned’ from the post in June, even if it was known within the party that his departure to MANIDEM was just temporal. To MRC officials, the election that was initially scheduled to take place at the Extraordinary Elective Convention of the party on November 29, 2025 in Yaounde, was supposed to be an opening for Prof Maurice Kamto to return to the post of National President of MRC. In fact the organization of the Extraordinary Elective Convention of MRC was mainly for that purpose.
Extraordinary Convention Holds By Videoconference
Meanwhile, it would also be recalled that the DO of Yaounde 4, Akondi Elvis Mbahangwen, on November 27, 2025, prohibited the holding of the Extraordinary Elective Convention of MRC, which was scheduled for the party’s headquarters in Yaounde on November 29, 2025, under the pretext that it posed a threat to public peace and order. On paper,the decision by the DO followed a petition that was filed against the holding of the Extraordinary Elective Convention of MRC, by a well –known “Founding Member” of the party, Dr Okala Ebode Joseph Thierry.
Since MRC could not hold the convention in Yaounde, the party’s Directorate decided that the Extraordinary Elective Convention of the party should hold by video conference on December 21, 2025. The main highlight of the Extraordinary Elective Convention of MRC was the re-election of Prof Maurice Kamto, to the post of National President the party. It should be noted that the election was by a list system.
According to Mamadou Mota, who maintained the post of 1st Vice President of MRC on Kamto’s list, at the election which reportedly held during the videoconferencing on December 21, 2025, the list of Prof Maurice Kamto, which was the reportedly the lone list that was received by the Organizing Committee of the convention, registered an impressive score of 95, 44 % in the election.. Mamadou Mota, tried to justify the holding of the Extraordinary Elective Convention of the MRC by videoconference, with an argument that the party has to adapt to modernity. He said the modern method of holding some meetings by videoconferences, and other different online options, have become imperative for the opposition in Cameroon, considering the hostile political environment in which they are operating. He pointed out, and rightly so, that opposition meetings planned to be held in the classical method, were most of the times banned by the CPDM regime, through the DOs. He said the holding of their Extraordinary Elective Convention online, which they found even much more convenient and cheap, was an indication that MRC will try to adapt its structures to contemporary realities.
But Debate Erupts On The Issue Over Legality Of The Online Convention
But despite Mamadou Mota’s argument, a dispute erupted in the MRC over the legality of the Extraordinary Elective Convention of the party, which held by videoconference on December 21, 2025, as well as the re-election of Prof Maurice Kamto as President of the party. There is no question, that in this digital age, a political party can for convenience sake, hold its meetings by videoconference or online. These days, especially since the outbreak of COVID – 19 in 2020, some high level meetings involving even heads of States or their collaborators, hold by videoconference. This happens even in the backward CEMAC Sub-region, and the Cameroon Government does participate.
But there is no doubt however that in Cameroon, the CPDM Regime, through the Ministry of Territorial Administration commonly known by the French acronym, MINAT, will not support or encourage the idea of political parties holding their meetings online. This is because it will deprive the regime of the undemocratic strategy that they have been using over the years, to stifle or even block the activities of opposition parties, by using DOs to ban their meetings, under the pretext that they pose threats to public peace and order.
Okala Ebode Is Not Alone
Meanwhile in the MRC, it is not only Okala Ebode that has stood against the ‘controversial’ re-election of Prof Maurice Kamto as National President of MRC, during the Extraordinary Elective Convention of the party which reportedly held by videoconference on December 21, 2025. Speaking in a programme over Info Matin TV in Yaounde recently, Willy Mengue, a member of the MRC Directorate, insisted in an interview which lasted over an hour, that the Extraordinary Elective Convention of MRC which reportedly held by videoconference was irregular or illegal. He also argued that the candidacy of Prof Maurice Kamto in the election that was organized during the during videoconferencing was illegal, and thus his re-election to the post of National President of MRC was illegal.
The Dispute Goes TO Court, As Crisis Degenerates
Meanwhile, the contention in the MRC by some members of the party, over the regularity or legality of the Extraordinary Elective Convention of the party that held by videoconference on December 21, 2025, and the issue of the legibility of Prof Maurice Kamto to have ran for re-election to the post of National President of MRC, have now moved from the party, to the court. This followed a complaint that was filed at the Court of First Instance (Magistrate Court), Yaounde –Ekounou, by a group of three militants of the MRC led by the a senior member of the party , or better still, a member of the Directorate of the party, Willy Mengue. The two other persons are Georgette Laure Kamegne (Laure Noutchang), and Sebastien Mballa Wouria II. The case opened at the Yaounde –Ekounou Court on Thursday, July 9, 2026.
The MRC leadership that is taking the case seriously, as it seriously threatens its legal existence, sent a team of 6 lawyers led by Barrister Hippolite T.B. Meli, to the Yaounde – Ekounou Court on that July 9, 2026, as the matter kicked off. The case was postponed to Thursday, July 16, 2026.
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