Cameroon: New Party To Oppose Biya
By a correspondent
Actually, on the face of it, there need not be any crisis at all, since the new event is at least constitutional and appears to be taking President Paul Biya at his word. It will be recalled that about a year ago when he announced his liberalisation programme, he promised to restore all the democratic rights that had been suppressed under his predecessor, Ahmadou Ahidjo including the possibility of being challenged for the post of the Presidency.
A group of people has sent a letter to the President announcing the formation of the Cameroon Democratic Party.
So far, only Mr S.A. Ngwana has gone public as the leader of the proposed party and in an interview in London last week, even though he was a great pains to emphasise the legitimacy and constitutional nature of his Cameroon Democratic Party, he was unwilling to name anybody else that was with him, because, according to him, some of the people are still within the ruling party CNU.
Mr Ngwana emphasised that even though under the constitution of Cameroon, the country was a multi- party state, since ex-President Ahidjo and the leaders of other political parties came together to form the CNU, the country had virtually become a one party state and he said there were fears now that a de jure one party state would be announced during the forthcoming congress of the CNU early next year.
Mr Ngwana spoke about the short- comings of the CNU which he des- cribed repeatedly as a monster that had taken away the freedoms and indivi- dual rights of the Cameroonian people, thus "reducing our chances of economic development". He also spoke about a widespread fear of the secret police who, he alleged, would arrest anybody for simply holding opinions contrary to government views. He offered in support of this view that some journalists have been arrested just because they gave "constructive criticism".
As the interview progressed, Mr Ngwana appeared to be drawing a picture of a hapless President Paul Biya who is a virtual prisoner in the hands of the CNU monster and is not his own master.
Even though Mr Ngwana was categorical that the CNU "had failed the people, had not lived up to expectation and had become a monster that should be replaced", he stopped short of blaming the shortcomings on President Biya or holding him personally blamable for these shortcomings.
The problem, as Mr Ngwana sees it, is that since the CNU "appoints" the government, and is expected to execute the party's programme, there is not very much the government can do when the CNU has no policies or programmes. In Mr Ngwana's picturesque words:
"President Biya is being asked to make an omelette without an egg". He concedes that President Biya has not had enough time yet to prove himself in the less than two years that he has been in power and gives him credit for having denounced all the bad habits of the previous government and also for having promised to restore all democratic rights to the people.
Mr Ngwana reiterated continually that President Biya deserves to be given a chance to demonstrate what he could do and expressed the hope that "President Biya will not let us down", he has taken his oath of office to uphold the constitution and we are expecting him to do just that. We expect him to continue to allow the concept of a multi-party state to be made a reality.
According to Mr Ngwana, "the government's reaction to the announced intention to form a new party, has been one of shock, "they are in a panic", so much so that the Secretary-General of the CNU has allegedly said that Cameroon is not ripe for multi-parties! This clearly contradicts section 3 of the Cameroonian constitution which is quite categorical that ours is a multi-party state.
As Mr Ngwana left London for the third leg of his journey, he was confident that the Cameroon Democratic Party will succeed and gain many followers among the ranks of disillusioned CNU members among whom he admits he should be counted himself.
One thing is definite, there are more interesting times ahead for Cameroon
