The president of the Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC) Maurice Kamto, main opponent and unhappy rival of President Paul Biya in the 2018 presidential election, explains on the antenna of France 24 the reasons which pushed him to call for the boycott of municipal and legislative elections scheduled for February 9th.
In particular, he said that the security situation in the north-west and south-west regions of the country is not conducive to the organization of a poll. For the past two years, these regions have been the scene of a deadly conflict between English-speaking separatists and the army, which has already claimed more than 3,000 lives, according to NGOs.
Moreover, according to Maurice Kamto, the absence of a reform of the electoral code "would expose the country to new post-electoral tensions, because the same causes will produce the same effects".
The re-election in October 2018 of Paul Biya, aged 86, including 37 in power, had triggered a serious political crisis. Maurice Kamto - who came in second - challenged the victory and the MRC launched peaceful marches in the aftermath of the results to denounce an "electoral hold-up".
It was after one of these demonstrations that Maurice Kamto and dozens of his supporters were arrested in January. He was released nine months later, at the beginning of October, in particular as a result of international pressure, led by the United States and France.
"We are living a particularly dramatic moment in terms of civil liberties and human rights in Cameroon," he told France 24. "There is no limit, we have never reached such a level of political violence in the past ".
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