The Member of Parliament who decamped from the SDF party, Hon. Jean Michel Nintcheu said on Sunday that the Biya regime has extended mandate of MPs and Councillors because they are afraid to face the opposition leader, Professor Maurice Kamto.
‘The regime is terrified of facing Maurice KAMTO, the candidate of the MRC and the APC, the Breath of Hope, in the 2025 presidential election.’
President Paul Biya tabled a bill in parliament to extend the mandates from March 2025 to March 2026. The government says this is because of four elections built for 2025.
READ FULL STATEMENT
Clearly, the inability to respect the law is consubstantial with the BIYA-RDPC regime. As the presidential election of 2025 approaches, he shows himself unable to hide his panic about the prospect of facing Maurice KAMTO, the candidate of the MRC and the APC.
The extension of the mandate of MPs planned by the BIYA-RDPC regime is illegal in addition to being dishonest and inappropriate. Indeed, article 15 (4) of the Constitution subject
s the extension of the mandate of MPs to a ‘serious crisis, or when circumstances require it’.
The CPDM power is trying to justify the one-year extension of the current mandate of MPs in the National Assembly by ‘the need to lighten the electoral calendar which provides for four (04) elections during the year 2025 namely : the election of MPs to the National Assembly and Municipal Councilors, as well as the election of the President of the Republic and Regional Councilors. In this regard, and apart from the election of Regional Councilors, the other elections which are direct ballots, require significant human, material and financial deployment.’
On the basis of this argument, the current mandate of MPs, which is due to expire in November 2025, is extended to March 30, 2026.
This clumsy attempt to justify yet another violation of the law is nothing but a crude and pathetic political manipulation of power. It confirms the notorious negligence and incompetence of the CPDM regime on several levels. Firstly, i
n principle. Since the presidential election of 2018 and the legislative and municipal elections of 2020, the CPDM power knows perfectly well that all the elections invoked will take place in 2025. He had the legal obligation and the political duty to take all the human and financial measures to organize them, unless he admitted, as he pitifully does, his incompetence and his incapacity to manage the country. So many other African countries, which are no better off than Cameroon, organize several elections during the same year.
Concretely, then. Considering more specifically the alleged constraints linked to ‘significant human, material and financial deployment’, there are not four (04) elections during the year 2025. There are only two in reality: the combined Legislative and Municipal election, and the presidential election.
The election of Regional Councilors is an indirect ballot, with an electorate reduced to Municipal Councilors only. Consequently, it does not require the famous ‘significant human, ma
terial and financial deployment’ necessary for the organization of direct elections.
Furthermore, how in a country where recurring financial scandals involving ministers, directors general and other identified personalities are the norm, and the repression of financial crimes the exception, can the Government invoke the financial cost of elections to grant twelve months of additional salaries to MPs of a National Assembly itself consumed by the embezzlement of public funds publicly denounced?
If the combined election of MPs and municipal councilors took place on the right date, in 2025, i.e. in February, it would be eight (08) months removed from the presidential election of October 2025. By extending it by one year, that is to say until March 30, 2026, the period which will now separate it from the presidential election of October 2025 would only be four (04) months.
We can only note the incongruity of the financial argument put forward by the RDPC with regard to the financial cost of extending the mandat
e of MPs by one year compared to the expenses linked to the organization of several elections.
When money and logistics are scarce, a longer time between elections is more of an advantage and not a disadvantage, much less an obstacle. The extension of the mandates of deputies and municipal councilors in 2018 was based on too much rapprochement between the double legislative and municipal elections and the presidential elections which were separated by a few days. This time, it’s the opposite!
All considerations made, on the basis of the same arguments invoked by the authorities to decide on this extension of the mandate of the deputies, we could also have scheduled general Legislative, Municipal and Presidential elections for the same day.
On the basis of this simple demonstration, Cameroonians and the international community can easily see that the motivations for this extension of the mandate of deputies lie elsewhere. The BIYA-RDPC regime is afraid of the upcoming electoral deadlines, due to its disastr
ous record and the legitimate popular anger of Cameroonians, perceptible through their exceptional mobilization for massive registrations on the electoral lists which nothing discourages, not even the shameful and crude maneuvers of the main national leaders of ELECAM, acting in co-action with the Minister of Territorial Administration. The regime is terrified of facing Maurice KAMTO, the candidate of the MRC and the APC, the Breath of Hope, in the 2025 presidential election.
The arbitrary and unconstitutional extension of the mandate of MPs is therefore in fact only a crude maneuver aimed at trying to exclude from the race, our declared candidate, the candidate of the people of Change and Alternation. Unfortunately for those in power, as announced during the MRC Convention in November 2023, Maurice KAMTO will indeed be a candidate in the presidential election in October 2025.
Believe me, the APC and Cameroonians of all origins, victims of the suffering inflicted on them by the catastrophic management and m
ultifaceted violence of a power which dreams of being eternal, are ready to confront the BIYA-RDPC regime on the legal ground. , and on any ground other than thisregime will have chosen.
Cameroonians, my dear compatriots,
go and register on the electoral lists even more massively. Brave the obstacles of ELECAM, which will be more and more numerous, to take advantage, in Cameroon and in the diaspora, of the eight (08) additional months that the arbitrary and illegal extension of the mandate of deputies offers us. We will thus be able to aim for a record of at least twelve million registered by the time the electoral body for the presidential election is convened in October 2025.
Done in Douala on July 7, 2024
Honorable Jean Michel
NINTCHEU,
national president of the FCC, Acting National Coordinator of the APC.
Source: Cameroon News Agency