Cameroon: for Cardinal Tumi, regional elections are not enough
Cardinal Tumi (center) during his participation in the launch of the national dialogue on September 30, 2019. AFP - STRINGER
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The first regional elections are to take place at the end of the week in Cameroon, in particular to give more autonomy to the English-speaking regions.
For Cardinal Christian Tumi, former Archbishop of Douala, we must go further.
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It was a promise resulting from the great national debate a year ago in Cameroon.
The first
regional elections will
be held this weekend.
Provided for by the 1996 Constitution, they had never been organized.
For his part, Cardinal Christian Tumi explains at the microphone of our special correspondent in Douala, Jeanne Richard, that this does not go far enough.
We have to go back to a federal system for him: “
That won't automatically solve the problem, no.
I said that there has to be a certain autonomy of the North West and South West as it was when we were a federal country.
It was a period in our country where we had no problems.
"
"A federated state is necessarily a divided state"
According to him, a return to this system will not divide the country: “
I wonder why they did not go directly towards a kind of federalism.
Francophones have to get over their heads that a federated state is necessarily a divided state.
No, we can have federalism and the country remains perfectly united, because nothing less than federalism will succeed in stabilizing Cameroon
”.
For the government, this should help put an end to the Anglophone crisis which has left more than 3,000 dead and 700,000 displaced.
Because the English-speaking minority is fighting for more autonomy after what it describes as decades of marginalization by the government and the French-speaking majority.
►Also read: Report - Cameroon: the regional meetings of December 6, an organizational and security challenge
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