The President of Cameroon Paul Biya has set Monday September 7 to December 6 the first regional elections, especially in English-speaking areas in the grip of a bloody separatist conflict, but the ballot is rejected as it is by a significant part of the opposition who intends to boycott him.

This indirect ballot in the ten Cameroonian regions should allow the establishment of regional councils provided for in the 1996 Constitution to promote decentralization but never elected until today.

These councils, in the two English-speaking regions of the North-West and the South-West, should also be endowed with a special status promised in October 2019 by Paul Biya, 87 years old and in unchallenged power for nearly 38 years, at the 'resulting from a national dialogue to try to put an end to the fighting between separatists and security forces.

Limited powers

Grand voters will have to elect 90 regional councilors, including 20 representatives of traditional chiefdoms.

The regional councils are endowed with limited powers in non-sovereign areas such as equipment, regional planning and culture.

The two main opposition parties had warned that they would boycott the regional ones, in particular as long as the bloody conflict in the two regions housing the bulk of the Cameroonian English-speaking minority was not resolved.

In these areas, Anglophone armed groups demanding independence are fighting the security forces deployed massively by the regime of Paul Biya, dominated by the French-speaking majority.

The UN, international NGOs and some Western states regularly denounce crimes committed against civilians by both sides.

"We will not participate in the regional elections provided for in the current patterns", warned on September 2 John Fru Ndi, president of the Social Democratic Front (SDF), one of the two main opposition parties which requires in particular beforehand " a cease-fire "in the English-speaking zone.

"No deviation in behavior will be tolerated"

Maurice Kamto, main opponent of Paul Biya at the head of the Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC), called on August 23 for "the resolute peaceful resistance of the Cameroonian people against the electoral forfeiture in preparation and the pure departure and simple of Mr. Paul Biya ".

"No deviation in behavior will be tolerated," the Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, warned Monday evening, promising that the security of the ballot would be ensured.

With AFP

The summary of the week

France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 application

google-play-badge_FR