“Douala Group” Embarks On A Last Minute Attempt To Find A Unique Opposition Candidate For The 2025 Presidential Election In Cameroon

Warns that the ruling CPDM Party will win the presidential election, if the opposition goes in for the election in disperse ranks as in the past

But many political observers think that just like in past presidential elections, the chances of the opposition having a unique candidate at the 2025 presidential election is less than 10 %.

With barely weeks to go for the President of the Republic, Paul Biya, to convene Cameroonians or electorates to the polls for the presidential election expected to hold in October, another initiative has been launched by a group known as ‘ Groupe de Douala’, that is, the Douala Group, to try to rally the opposition to have a unique candidate for the election. The Group’s programme shows that the unique candidate will be the President of a transitional government, if they win the election. The transitional government will carry out a number of important reforms in the country including constitutional reforms, at the end of which a democratic election will be organized to elect a new President of the Republic. The President of the transitional government will not be a candidate in the election.

The Douala Group which is comprised of some political parties and civil society organizations is headed by a veteran politician, Georges Sam Mbaka, the President of AFP, who was for many years the Vice President of Adamou Ndam Njoya’s CDU Party. The Secretary General of the group is another veteran politician, Ekane Anicet, the President of MANIDEM.

According to the Douala Group, no member of the group has ambition to the unique opposition candidate, or to even to be a candidate, at the 2025 presidential election in the country. The leadership of the Douala Group has been granting press conferences and featuring in political programmes over Tv stations, to explain to the public the mission of the group, the need of a unique opposition candidate at the 2025 presidential election, and the importance of a transitional government for Cameroon.  Worthy of note that the idea to create the Douala Group came from the Douala based President of a civil society organization, KAWTAL, Abel Elimbi Lobe (former member of the SDF), who is  known to be a  strong advocate for a unique opposition candidate at the presidential election in Cameroon. But after the Douala Group was created, Elimbi Lobe fell out with some members of the Group and left it. Some people allege that he was pushed out.

Long Political Experience

Members of the Douala Group points out that most of them are people with long political experience, and argue that they have the capacity to be able to select the best presidential candidate in the Cameroon opposition.  Thus their role is not just to bring together major opposition candidates to discuss the possibility of a single candidate.  They think they have the capacity to decide on who is the best candidate, or better still the candidate with the best chance of winning the 2025 presidential election.

It should be noted that the present leadership of the Douala Group has the possibility to give an investiture to a candidate for the 2025 presidential election, because Ekane Anicet’s MANIDEM Party has one miserable councilor at the Dibombari Council in Mungo Division. The council was won by simple majority at the February 9, 2020 Municipal Elections, by late Paul Eric Kingue’s MPCN Party, with CPDM coming up second.

Some ‘Positive Reactions’ / Alarm Bell

Meanwhile according to the Douala Group, they have already contacted a number of opposition parties’ presidential candidates for the 2025 presidential election, on the need for the opposition to put up a unique candidate for the election.  The Group says  Mayor Hermine Patricia Tomaino Ndam Njoya of the CDU,  Hon Cabral Libii of PCRN, Prof  Maurice  Kamto of MRC, and Barrister Akere Muna who is the candidate of Nkou Mvondo’s ‘Parti Univers’, have reacted positively to the contacts,  saying they are open to discussions. As for Chief Hon Joshua Osih f the SDF, the Douala Group says he has expressed reservation.

But the question is whether those presidential aspirants that have told the Douala Group that they are opened to discussions on the issue of a unique candidate are serious or honest in what they say. This is because we heard such statements a number of times before, but at the end of the day, the story is always different.

The Douala Group has however been ringing an alarm bell, insisting that if the opposition does not put up a unique candidate at the 2025 presidential election, and  go in for the election in disperse ranks, the candidate of the ruling CPDM like in the past, will  certainly win the election again.

Political Dishonesty In Play

But keen political observers and analysts will agree that from all indications, the chances of having a unique opposition candidate at the 2025 presidential election in Cameroon, is less than 10 %.  It would be recalled that last year, The Mentor News came up with a number of articles, highlighting the need of a unique opposition candidate for the 2025 presidential election in the country, as well as the importance of a transitional government for a country like Cameroon.  So by saying that the call for a unique opposition candidate  for the 2025 presidential election will  likely not work, does not mean that The Mentor News is pessimistic as regard the concept of a unique candidate of the opposition. Rather, The Mentor News, drawing from what has been observed so far, is just being realistic.

The truth is that there is no one among these presidential aspirants that the Douala Group has contacted for example, who in reality will be prepared to withdraw from the presidential election in favour of another candidate. The thing that pushes some opposition leaders or candidates, to dishonestly say that they are open to discussions for a unique opposition candidate, is that they want to avoid public criticisms that they are against the idea of a unique opposition candidate.

But it is not that these opposition leaders or candidates hate the idea of a unique candidate. It is rather a matter of not being prepared or not being willing to withdraw from the presidential election for another candidate. From all indications, they have since settled on the fact that they will be candidates at the 2025 presidential election.

Another problem at this moment is that we are already close to the presidential election, and all serious aspirants should by now have already prepared their manifestos and invested money in quite a number of other things related to the election.

The Controversial Proposal That Another Group In Douala, Put Up For The 2018 Presidential Election   

At the 2018 presidential election, another Douala based veteran politician, Jean Jacques Ekindi, then the National  President of  ‘Mouvement Pregressistes’, MP  Party,  was the President of a group that came up with a rather proposal to select a single opposition candidate.  Ekindi’s group asked all opposition candidates at the presidential election, to send in their different programmes designed to put back the country on the rail. That is, the candidate’s manifesto or economic programme, social programme, political programme and so on. Ekindi said his group would evaluate the programmes of the different opposition candidates, asses the capacity of each of the candidates, and then tell the Cameroonian people the best candidate to vote for.

The demand that was made by the Ekindi group was rather embarrassing to the different presidential candidates of the opposition, who decided to ignore the group. Two years after the 2018 presidential election, Ekindi who resigned from the ruling CPDM in 1991, joined the opposition and created his own party, surprised many by returning to the CPDM.  This raised some suspicions that the Biya regime might have been behind what he and his group wanted to do with the opposition at the 2018 presidential election.