Governance system in Cameroon – World Countries for Kids

President Paul Biya has been ruling Cameroon since 1982. His Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) has retained power by rigging elections, limiting the activities of opposition parties, and using state resources for political patronage. NGOs and press freedom are under restriction, and due process protections are really poorly upheld. A struggle between security forces and separatists in the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions is going on and has caused widespread civilian deaths and displacements.

Electoral Process

The president elected directly to a seven-year term in a single voting round is the head of the state and may serve an unlimited number of terms due to a constitutional amendment made by President Biya in 2008. Biya secured a seventh term in the October 2018 presidential election, with whopping 71 percent of the vote in a process characterized by a lack of genuine democratic competition and low turnout. Maurice Kamto of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) came in distant second with 14 percent of the vote. The election was stained by irregularities including unsigned results sheets. Intimidation and fear in the Anglophone regions barred many from casting their votes. Supporters of Biya, who attained the age of 90 years in February 2023, have started calling for him to run in 2025 elections for an eighth term.

Cameroon has a bicameral Parliament. The upper chamber of the Parliament is the 100-member Senate. 70 senators are elected through indirect suffrage by regional councils while the remaining 30 are appointees of the president. Direct elections are held in multimember constituencies to elect 180 members of the lower chamber (the National Assembly). Members of both upper and lower chambers serve five year terms.

Elections for 70 senators held in March 2023 generated accusations that the ruling CPDM had resorted to vote-buying and other irregularities. Ten political parties participated in the election, but the CPDM won all 70 seats. In the previous poll held in 2018, the opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) had won 7 of the 70 elected seats. The remaining 30 senators including six representing opposition parties were appointed by Biyain March 2023 itself.

After long delay National Assembly elections were finally held in February 2020, together with municipal elections. The CRM didn’t put up candidates, though the SDF participated, as did the UNDP, which is allied with the CPDM. The CPDM maintained its majority in the National Assembly, winning 139 of the 167 seats. The first-ever regional elections happened in December 2020, in spite of opposition boycotts and threats from Anglophone separatists. Biya’s CPDM won the majority.

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