To analyse
40 years of Paul Biya in power: the mysteries of the political longevity of the president of Cameroon
Cameroonian President Paul Biya.
REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer
Text by: Valentin Zinga Follow
8 mins
For some, it would be the enigmatic nature of the character.
According to others, it would be necessary to highlight the management technique of political personnel, of which he is a real demiurge, and his ability to adapt to situations.
According to others still, the path of “
initiation to the knowledge of traditional power
” would benefit from being explored.
The least we can say is that the “secrets” of the exceptional forty-year lease of the Cameroonian head of state are still a great mystery.
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From our correspondent in Cameroon,
“
I will start by saying that whoever wants does not last in power, but whoever can lasts (…) The Cameroonian presidential elections of 2018 are certain, but still far away.
We have time to reflect and when the time comes, Cameroonians and French friends and everyone will know if I am a candidate or if I am retiring
”.
July 2015. President Paul Biya, in favor of a joint press conference, accompanied by French President François Hollande, responds to the concern of those who want to sound out his political future, by accusing him of a long exercise of the power.
And if this remark summed up, in itself, the characteristic trait of the personality of the Cameroonian head of state?
The analytical perspective is relevant in more ways than one.
October 2007. Four years before the 2011 presidential election in which he finally took part, the same Paul Biya, answering a question from journalist Ulysse Gosset of France 24, on his intention to stand for this election, had split of this answer: “
The presidential elections in Cameroon are certain, but distant
.
".
August 2022. When asked once again about the horizon of his political retirement, the president, re-elected in October 2018, has this projection: “
Cameroon is governed in accordance with its Constitution.
According to this Constitution, my term of office lasts seven years.
So try to do the subtraction and you will know how much time I have left to run the country.
But otherwise, when this mandate expires, you will be informed as to whether I am staying or going to the village
”.
mystery and silence
Will he run in 2025?
Mystery and gumdrop.
For the Cameroonian Head of State, this mania for not revealing himself before his time, for combining the handling of enigma and opacity, appears, in the eyes of many observers, as one of the possible explanations for his longevity. in power.
"
We note in him, a calculated and economical management of time which plays on mystery and silence
", deciphers Professor Mathias Eric Owona Nguini, sociopolitical scientist, teacher at the University of Yaoundé II-Soa.
His colleague, Professor Joël Narcisse Meyolo, from the History Department of the University of Yaoundé I, adds: "
President Paul Biya knew how to maintain a myth of his person.
This makes him a secretive, unpredictable man, the master of clocks.
This way of doing things gives him control of his collaborators, because no one can claim to know or know when the latter can start moving.
This explains, for example, that in forty years, he formed thirty-seven governments
”.
In this light, the testimony of Professor Titus Edzoa, surgeon and former Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic, is all the more edifying, on these aspects of President Biya's personality: "
In this system,
says this former confidant of the disgraced head of state
, the only master on board is the President of the Republic.
He has an extraordinary talent for creating a veritable hymen between the formal and the informal, an inextricable situation of which he is the sole magician.
The enigma is cleverly created and maintained by itself
”.
Even his predecessor, Ahmadou Ahidjo, himself confessed his error of assessment of his successor at the head of the state, at the height of the first tensions between the two men: "
I I made a mistake.
President Biya is weak.
But I did not know that he was so deceitful and hypocritical
,” he wrote, disillusioned, in a press release of August 24, 1983.
President Biya therefore appears as a politician who cannot be deciphered, both confusing and unpredictable, according to numerous testimonies.
But it is clear that he has several strings to his bow, thus dominating the Cameroonian political scene for forty years.
He is perceived as the demiurge of a good part of the political personnel who are indebted to him, both within his party, the Democratic Rally of the Cameroonian People (RDPC in power), and in the mysteries of the State.
"
Alongside his secret life, President Biya, by establishing strong men in sequences, has ensured a certain popularity with the populations.
This explains, for example, that in the absence of a physical presence on the field, he is always master of the game. The strong men on whom he relies receive various facilities making them excrescences of the Head of State, and therefore, the pledges of his popularity
”, explains the historian Joël Narcisse Meyolo.
However, the management of its political “creatures” nevertheless obeys well-identified principles and logics, as the sociopolitical scientist Mathias Eric Owona Nguini points out: “
We note in President Biya a maneuvering management of political personnel.
He spins the carousel.
By avoiding the formation of political personalities that are too strong and could become uncontrollable
”.
Hence, probably, a tendency on the part of the "boss" to, if not stir up, at least to put up with the micro-rivalries that animate local political life, in the regions, clans, even families, whose various figures very quickly become interchangeable, according to the formation of government teams, or appointments in the form of disgraces and promotion to various functions in the CPDM, the state apparatus, or even public companies.
Respect for socio-political balances
However, two basic principles are scrupulously respected.
Respect for various socio-political balances.
So that, on the one hand, all the regions have their "representatives" in various places where power is exercised, and on the other hand, several political parties are part of government teams, in a logic of "power sharing" assumed and mastered.
Illustration of this last point: the government in place since January 4, 2019, following the presidential election of October 7, 2018, includes figures from the CPDM (including English-speaking Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute), from the National Union for democracy and progress (of Bello Bouba Maïgari, perceived as one of the heirs of Ahmadou Ahidjo), of the Front pour le salut national du Cameroun (FSNC of Issa Tchiroma Bakari),
Observers, to explain the longevity in power of the Cameroonian Head of State, point to the latter's great ability to deal with events without giving in to pressure, some of which sometimes seem to impose, in the eyes of citizens, decisions in the 'emergency.
Even if it means accrediting the hypothesis of the “logic of rotting”.
Even in times of crisis.
Referring to "political psychology", Aristide Menguele Menyengue, lecturer at the Department of Sciences of the University of Douala, goes there to decrypt it: "
For some, this political longevity is the result of the fascinating adaptability of the President of the Republic who, each time, knew how to use his great intelligence in the management of generally unfavorable situations to consolidate his power.
He clearly takes up a challenge since his presidential “
armchair
”
was not sold dearly
when he came to power.
The joke "
does not last in power who wants but who can"
is revealing in more ways than one.
In this respect, he would have the art of transforming critical situations into political opportunities.
As proof, none of the many political, economic, security, social or health crises that he managed as President of the Republic was able to destabilize his
power
.
And to add: "
Others explain this longevity in power by the certain mastery of the science of the government of men, on the one hand, and on the other hand, they base it on the great experience of the management of state, experience acquired through a long and complex process of learning and initiation into political leadership”
.
Cameroon, the preserve of none
One certainty: international cooperation tends to appear as one of the privileged observation sites, of this adaptability of Paul Biya.
The Cameroonian Head of State has, in recent years, diversified partnerships, opening up to China and India, while retaining traditional "friends", such as France, the United States United and Israel.
"Friend" of all, "Cameroon is the preserve of none", according to a maxim enacted at the beginning of Paul Biya's magisterium at the top of the state.
But, there is reason, in the opinion of the political scientist, to take into account this “
political engineering of traditional societies in which the exercise of power is generally a call of fate
”.
Because, "
all
in all,
explains Aristide Menguele,
we cannot claim to explain the longevity of President Paul Biya without integrating into the analysis the procedure of "charismatization" from which he was able to associate legal-rational domination, a traditional legitimacy acquired at the end of the initiation to the knowledge of traditional power as indicated by its ennoblement in the initiatory traditional societies
”.
Unfathomable Africa.
Indecipherable Paul Biya.
06:34
Picture taken on June 21, 1983 shows Cameroonian President Paul Biya in Yaounde.
Paul Biya passes the milestone of three decades at the head of his west African state on November 6, 2012. (Photo by PIERRE GUILLAUD / AFP) AFP - PIERRE GUILLAUD
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