Cameroon postpones parliamentary and local elections by one year
On Tuesday, the Cameroonian parliament passed a law introduced by President Paul Biya that postpones the parliamentary and local elections scheduled for February 2025 by one year. Consequently, the mandate of the members of parliament, which was originally due to end on 10 March 2025, will also be extended by 12 months. Biya’s ruling party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (Rassemblement démocratique du Peuple Camerounais, CPDM), has an absolute majority in the National Assembly with 156 out of 180 seats. According to François Wakata Bolvine, the presidency’s minister delegate in charge of relations with the assemblies, the reason for the postponement of the election was the busy electoral calendar. Four polls, including regional and council elections, were originally scheduled for the year. AThe postponement of the elections was in compliance with the constitution, according to government sources. The constitution authorises Biya, if circumstances require it, to ask parliament for its approval for extensions or the postponement of elections after consulting the Constitutional Council.
Meanwhile, the opposition and civil society oppose the postponement as undemocratic. In their opinion, the rescheduling of the election is a political calculation by the 91-year-old to extend his term of office for life and secure victory in the upcoming presidential elections. These are expected to take place in October 2025 – and therefore before the postponed parliamentary and local elections. As Cameroon’s electoral law states that only presidential candidates from a party that is represented either in the National Assembly, the Senate or in the regional or local councils can be nominated, the rescheduling of the legislative elections would also significantly impact the chances of Biya’s challengers, criticised Joshua Osih, a member of parliament from the opposition Social Democratic Front (Front social Démocrate, SDF), for example. Many opposition leaders, including Biya’s strongest challenger in the 2018 presidential election, Maurice Kamto from the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (Mouvement pour la Renaissance du Cameroun, CRM), would now not be able to fulfil this requirement. The CRM boycotted the last parliamentary and local elections in 2020 due to a lack of electoral reforms and the arrest of Kamto and other party members at the beginning of 2019 and therefore does not have the necessary representation in the national or local parliaments to nominate a candidate. With the postponement of the election from February 2025 to February 2026, CRM has now been deprived of the opportunity to secure seats in the National Assembly or in the municipal assemblies before the presidential election and to endorse Kamto as a presidential candidate. Although the law states that it is possible to nominate a candidate without a seat in the assemblies, this requires the signature of 300 influential political figures, such as former ministers or religious leaders. However, according to Kamto, these are either political allies of Biya or intimidated by his repressive policies.
Biya, who is currently the oldest head of state in the world and Africa’s second-longest governing president, has not yet made any official statement about a possible candidacy in next year’s presidential elections – although this is considered highly likely. Even before the postponement of the parliamentary and local elections, the climate between the government and the opposition had recently intensified. In March of this year, a ban was imposed on an opposition alliance consisting of the Political Alliance for Change (l’Alliance politique pour le changement, APC) and Alliance for Political Transition in Cameroon (l’Alliance pour une transition politique, ATP) parties and the freedom of the press has also been further restricted in recent months and years. Biya, who has ruled the country with an increasingly iron fist since 1982, would be able to govern until 2032 if he emerges victorious in the 2025 presidential elections. He would then be 98 years old.
Further tensions between ECOWAS and the Sahel Alliance countries Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger
On Monday, Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye called for dialogue and peaceful reconciliation between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the three countries of the so-called Alliance of Sahel States (Alliance des États du Sahel, AES), Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Faye, together with his Togolese counterpart Faure Gnassingbé, was appointed mediator for ECOWAS with the three states at the 65th ordinary summit of the heads of state and government of the ECOWAS member states in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Sunday. Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu was also re-elected to the rotating presidency of the regional bloc for another year. The media focus of the summit was particularly on how to deal with the three Sahel states led by the military, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which announced their withdrawal from the economic community in January of this year (Press Review CW 5/2024). Despite the easing of sanctions against Mali and Niger, the regional organisation’s efforts to convince its three founding members to remain in the bloc before the one-year withdrawal period stipulated in Article 91 of the ECOWAS statute expires have not yet had any effect.
Instead, Burkina Faso’s transitional president and junta leader Ibrahim Traoré confirmed on Saturday – just one day before the ECOWAS Summit – at a separate summit meeting with his counterparts from Mali and Niger, Colonel Assimi Goïta and General Abdourahamane Tiani in the Nigrian capital Niamey that their withdrawal from ECOWAS was irrevocable. Instead, they wanted to further consolidate the security and defence alliance AES (Press Review CW 38/2023), which was concluded in September last year, and offer an alternative to ECOWAS, according to the junta leaders. Correspondingly, a treaty was signed at the summit to establish the eponymous Confederation of the Alliance of Sahel States (la Confédération de l’Alliance des États du Sahel, AES). In future, this confederation should not only cooperate closely in the areas of foreign affairs and security, particularly in the fight against terrorism, but also in the areas of agriculture and food security, water and the environment, energy and mining, trade and industrialisation, infrastructure and transport, communications and telecommunications, and digitalisation. In addition, the free movement of people and goods between states is to be regulated and a joint investment bank and a “stabilisation fund” established.
Last Friday, the German government also announced that it would close the German airbase at Niamey airport and move the 38 members of the German armed forces and 33 other employees from mid-July until the end of August. The base was the central hub for the German troop withdrawal from Mali last year and was initially to remain in place in accordance with a transitional agreement reached with Niger’s military government in May. According to this agreement, Niamey could be used for evacuation operations elsewhere in Africa in the event of a crisis. However, the negotiation of a corresponding new troop deployment agreement failed due to a lack of immunity commitments for German soldiers, among other things, according to the German side. The US is also withdrawing from Niger. The last US troops from US Air Force Base 101 at Niamey Airport left the country on Sunday; the drone base near Agadez in the North of the country is to be vacated by mid-September at the latest. Niger, like Burkina Faso and Mali, has increasingly turned towards Russia since the military overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum last year and distanced itself from former foreign partners.
Special News
On Thursday, Kenya’s President William Ruto dissolved his cabinet and dismissed all ministers and the Attorney General with the exception of the Cabinet Secretary and Minister for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, Musalia Mudavadi. The reason for this is the ongoing nationwide protests against Ruto’s government, which were triggered by planned tax increases (Press Review CW 25/2024). Ruto has now announced consultations on the formation of a “broad-based government”.
In other news
The 21st International Storytelling Festival in Morocco’s capital Rabat came to an end on Sunday. Around 150 artists from all over the world took part in the week-long event, which was held this year under the motto “Places, Memory of a Nation” – including storytellers, musicians and other artists. The aim of the festival is to promote constructive dialogue and cultural exchange and to preserve oral traditions. In addition to storytelling, the audience was also able to experience puppet shows, pantomime performances and live music from bands from different parts of the world. Since its inception in 1996, the International Storytelling Festival has been a cornerstone of the promotion of Morocco’s intangible and artistic heritage. This year’s theme of the festival also aims to revive the historical memory and nostalgia associated with places, according to Dr Najima Thay Thay Rhozali, President of the International Academy of Intangible Cultural Heritage.