AFRICA ( commonwealth Union ) _ Unsurprisingly, the party of President Paul Biya, who has controlled Cameroon for more than 40 years, won every one of the 70 seats in the Senate that was indirectly elected on March 12. In the upcoming 10 days, the 90-year-old almighty head of state must also nominate 30 more senators.
Since the opposition held seven seats in the last Senate, the Rassemblement démocratique du peuple camerounais (RDPC) has further reinforced its entire control of the upper body of parliament.
According to the results announced by Clement Atangana, the president of the Constitutional Council, during a ceremony live-streamed on CRTV, the CPDM lists, which triumphed in each of Cameroon’s ten administrative areas, gained all the seats in each of these regions.
Ten parties had put out candidates for regional councillors, municipal councillors, and traditional chiefs to 11,134 voters in the country’s ten regions, which had a population of almost 28 million. Only the CPDM presented lists in each of the ten areas. 360 communes in Cameroon are under its authority.
In the National Assembly, 164 of the 180 lawmakers that were elected in February 2020 are members of Mr. Biya’s party and allies. The president of the Senate, who is constitutionally tasked with acting in the interim in the event of a vacancy at the top of authority, is the sole position up for election during the senatorial elections after the 30 additional senators have been nominated by the head of state.
The position has been held for ten years by the current occupant, Marcel Niat Njifenji, 88, who is close to Mr. Biya.
Everyone is talking about Paul Biya’s “succession.” The CPDM will be required to choose a successor who will have a strong chance of winning the next presidential election in the event of the president’s death or incapacity. But no one, not even those closest to Mr. Biya, has the courage to speak out in public.
Since 1982, Paul Biya has ruled Cameroon with an iron grip. The UN and foreign NGOs frequently accuse him of ruthlessly suppressing the opposition in the streets and of fomenting a murderous separatist uprising in the two western regions, which are home to the majority of the English-speaking Cameroonian population.
