Cameroon: Another President Who Won't Go

From The Economist print edition

Many Cameroonians are angry because their president refuses to retire

THE MAN who has presided over Cameroon for 25 years touts a simple slogan: “Paul Biya for peace”. But it no longer rings true. On February 24th and 25th, in Douala, Cameroon's commercial capital on the Atlantic coast, protesters lit fires on the streets, shooting broke out, and looters ran amok. Taxi drivers went on strike and many other people stopped work too. Shops and petrol stations were ransacked, cars burnt. Black clouds of smoke and the noise of gunfire enveloped the residential area along the main road out of Douala towards the capital, Yaoundé, where police later tear-gassed stone-throwing youths who had set up burning barricades.

The reason for the mayhem was the president's heavy hint, in an end-of-the-year address, that he might stay on for a third term of another seven years; the present constitution, which came into force in 1996, allows for only two terms. Since then, many Cameroonians, usually a quiet lot, have taken to the streets. Mr Biya has yet to make a clear bid to change the constitution but the issue has been widely aired in the newspapers, on television, and on street corners.

Mr Biya has reacted angrily. Several people who organised demonstrations against him have been arrested. Douala's governor has banned any more rallies. Earlier, the minister of communications closed one of the country's most popular private television stations for running too many programmes candidly discussing the prospect of a third term for Mr Biya. A musical artist, known as Joe La Conscience, was prevented from walking the 320 kilometres (200 miles) to Yaoundé from the town of Loum, north of Dowala, singing songs against the proposed constitutional change.

Many strikers say they are merely protesting against the high cost of fuel. But the problem runs a lot deeper. Mr Biya's bid for another term has unleashed a rare outbreak of public discussion and dissent at a time when the country has fallen heavily into debt. Transparency International, a Berlin-based lobby that measures corruption, says it has become “endemic” in Cameroon. Elections in the last few years have been so patently rigged that few voters bother to turn up.

Still, the opposition is weak, though Mr Biya excoriated “the apprentice sorcerers in the shadows”. More than 200 parties have sprung up since multi-party politics was allowed in 1990. Garga Haman Adji, a former minister in Mr Biya's government who is now in opposition, says that many opposition parties have been infiltrated and bought out by Mr Biya's party. In any event, the 75-year-old president has been badly rattled.

Comments

[S Akamembulle]

Mongo Betty once wrote in one of his famous writings "Cry the beloved country".A sentence that will remain in our lips and minds till the kingdom come.

People may sing or speak in different languages and voices but when they sniz it sounds the same.Cameroonians have done and undo,spoken,cried in sorrows and languished in pains all aiming to a common goal," a change of regime" .

There have been mounting frustration,dispair,depression, and alot of confusion amongst Cameroonians in relation to the kind of autocratic regime currently in place but do we Cameroonians have a solution? Far from it.

People are not born with power nor anybody is sent to this world by God to come and govern. Power is handed to someone by the people and when the same people demand for it to be taken away from you, the holder has no choice but to surrender. Refusing to surrender something that have been given to you has a very dangerous repercusions. The end result may not only affect you alone but all your entire family,friends,followers and smypathisers.I hope leaders such as Biya,Mugabe,Bongo just to name a few are aware of this.

If leaders who made themselves so great and invisble such as Saddam Hussein,Amadu Alhijo,Hurphoite Boigney just to name a few ,today their histories are written off what more of Our mighty Mr Biya.Only time shall tell.

God bless my Country Cameroon

[don]

who do you thikn you are mr biya? do you think you are the only power thirsty person in cameroon, do you think you are ont an ordinary person like all. Well, i would wish you bear in mind that before long, the worst rainning as president would be over.also, President Sakuzi has started proving your no regards.before long your rendom going into France would limited except for official work. Even foreigners despise you now for your adamant to change behaviour. No matter how long it take, you selfish intensions would remaind for generations upon generations.we no longer care of all this but live your conience be yourself. most importantly, we are tired. just go in peace and take your political asylem in japan. nobody would hurt you there. it is time for our beloved Father labd to face a new erra.

[martin sone]

Term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms a person may serve in a particular elected office. Term limits are found usually in presidential and semi-presidential systems as a method to curb the potential for dictatorships, where a leader effectively becomes "president for life"
President for Life is a title assumed by some dictators to remove their term limit, in the hope that their authority, legitimacy, and term will never be disputed.
The first well-known incident of a leader extending his term indefinitely was Roman dictator Julius Caesar, who made himself "Perpetual Dictator" (commonly mistranslated as 'Dictator-for-life') in 45 BC. Originally, the office of dictator could only be held for six months. His actions would later be mimicked by the French leader Napoleon Bonaparte who was appointed "First Consul for life" in 1802. Since then, many dictators have adopted similar titles.
Ironically, most leaders who have proclaimed themselves President for Life have not in fact gone on to successfully serve a life term. Most have been deposed long before their death. However, some, such as Rafael Carrera, François Duvalier, Saparmurat Niyazov, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia and Josip Broz Tito have managed to rule until their (natural) deaths.
Some very long-serving authoritarian presidents, such as North Korea's Kim Il-sung, who were frequently thought of as examples of Presidents for Life, actually underwent periodic renewal of mandate but these are largely regarded as show elections. After his death, the government wrote the presidential office out of the constitution, declaring him "eternal president."
Others made unsuccessful attempts to have themselves named President for Life, such as Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire in 1972.
Notably, George Washington rejected all attempts to make him President for Life. That particular institution, as designed by its proponents, was, however, quite dissimilar from the modern usage, being an attempt to establish a limited constitutional elective monarchy.
A President-for-life may be regarded as a de facto monarch. In fact, other than the title, political scientists often face difficulties in differentiating a state ruled by a president-for-life (especially one who inherits the job from a family or friend dictatorship as in the case of Mr.Biya of Cameroon) and a monarchy.

[ETEKI ELAME]

True times have really been hard in Cameroon lately. Prizes of basic commodities have risen. You can`t blame this on the President of the Republic. Look at it in this line. The price of petrol keeps rising, this is affected by world pice of petroleum products, not under the control of the President. As the price go up the cost of transportation goes up. Even ships that transport products like rice we import use fuel. The government has been trying to help out by subsidising the price of petrol at the pump by paying 100 FCFA per litre. Price rise of basic commodities has also been due to the market influence of our neigbours who have been affected by the Dutch disease. That is they rely only on their new found black gold. Thus their workers are paid huge sums of money; for example Equatorial Guinea is the only country that has increased salary by 210%. What do you expect, ofcourse everyone will abandon the farms and go for white and blue collar jobs. Their farms are now in Cameroon, as all our products are bought in the farm without reaching the market. Thus prizes in Cameroon of our foodstuff must rise. Who would not want to make such huge profits. The Bamileke women do not complain because they are the midlemen called "buyam sellam". So how do you blame this on the Presient. Lets blame ourselves. We need to increase our foodstuff production to meet the rising demand.
Infact our President is trying to do a lot by cutting down taxes on basic commodities in order to influence the prices. This is just a temporary measure because prices will still rise as petrol prices hike and our neigbours still fall sick of their Dutch disease. The only permanent solution will be for us young men to fall back to the farms, as thats where the money is. The present farmers are too old and feeble.

[Sofi Monono(Yaoundé)]

I have been following up the debates on this forum silently and I wonder how people waste valuable time responding to this 'psychopat' called Eteki Elame.Biya himself accepts it implicitely and explicitely from the various 'readymade' measures that were taken after the nationwide strike that his regime is directly responsible for the economic malaise Cameroonians are facing bc of its inability to arrest the situation which it created.Which means that he's to be held responsible.
A regime that has lost its economic souvereignty and independence to the Bretton Woods institution(IMF,World Bank).A regime that has no solutions to the economic malaise Cameroonians are facing.That's what we are talking about.For 26yrs Biya's regime has been unable to redress the economic crises in Cameroon and this 'psychopat' called Eteki Elame comes up to play 'the advocate' with stupid analysis.
In 1982 Biya was legated a country by the late Ahmadou Ahidjo with a booming economy like that of most flourishing South East Asian c'ntries today.Just 6 years after in 1988 Cameroon faced the worst economic crises in its history a consequence of which was the slashing of civil servant's salaries by more than 90%.Many Cameroonian economists have made a direct link between the avaricious corruption,thievery,capital flight by Biya's henchmen in the few years after his accession to power.The case of the Société Générale des Banques(SCB)which was the milking cow of late Mme Irene Biya and Ministers of his ethnic group and which led to its liquidation.Many economically viable financial houses suffered the same fate.
Infact,the regime has been carrying out business as if their sole intention is to hastily "reap the economic soul of Cameroon" and then disappear like a thief in the night.
Cameroon has won the goal medal of corruption three times.And corruption to go by economists is the main and direct cause of economic stagnation in any society.Is it globalisation that is the cause of corruption,capital flight,graft Elame? And cancerous corruption in Cameroon is "state sponsored" if I may put it like that.Those who wheel the machinery of power are those who are responsible for dragging the reputation of this country into mud.Those handpicked scape goats(Ondo Ndong,Siyam Siewe) that are trailing in jail today are prove of this.
Even if the prices of basic commodities are up everywhere in the world,even if fuel prices are high everywhere in the world,Cameroon's rotten economy is imputable on this regime.Amnesty International states it clearly that corruption in Cameroon is institutionalised.
The 'psychopat' called Elame stealthily and maliciously "omits" to state that farm to market roads in Cameroon are worst than those in precolonial Cameroon.Even if farmers increase foodstuff production,they will be forced to increase the prices of their products bc of the high cost of transportation to the markets.The so called ring road which anglophone Cameroonians and the grand west in general have been clamouring for,for decades today would've made it easier for farmers in these regions(which is the bread basket of Cameroon) to have an easy access to the country's main markets.And when you Elame will set the example by going back to the farm,then others will follow.
And the fellow wants to return to an agricultural system that is as medieval as he himself.

[The Southwesterner]

Sofi,thanks you just reminded our dear bigot - Eteki of simple things he keeps ignoring. This guy is a joke. I see, the service of the Prime minister is really handicapped. I kind of wonder what criteria they used in choosing their spin doctors. How on earth did Eteki of all became a spin doctor.
Eteki, spin is not your thing, you just do not fit squarely into it no matter how hard you try.Now Eteki the clown is lecturing us about some macro variables as to why prices of basic commodities keep rising. Fine try,but not convincing enough.

We will push you guys to an unknown corner. We will make sure you stay on the defensive as long as it takes. The pace of this debates would be determine by OUR TACTICS. The upper hand will be ours.

TAX and EMBEZZLE is the missing link in you last lecture. We know that,yet you fail to recognise the simple fact that the present economic model, infact for the past 25years is anti-growth, anti-business and anti-progress. Instead of investing on upgrading our physical infrastructure you guys choosed tax and embezzle.Instead of investing on the young to ensure they acquire the skills necessary to attract high skills investments that should help diversify our economy and ensure sustainable growth, you guys prefer tax and embezzle.At a time when transition econmies are taking advantage of globalisation, your present government primitively still runs a huge big bureaucracy and hoping farms that lack basic abilties to grow sustain their senseless and unproductive bureacracy. The last remnants of the once growing middle class in the Cameroons is shrinking badly to be replaced by a few new rising primitive Elites like Eteki.You guys are a curse to that nation.The scorecard of the Biya regime after more than two decades is laughable. Yet they want us give them another try. No way, over our death bodies.

The February revolt is a warning sign.The good news is that the moment was key. The second coming will be accurate. Their vulnerabilities are now surfacing. Eteki, your regime of smooth criminals will have to thread carefully. The young once again have been made sacrificial lambs for corrupt civil servants to be rewarded with a 15% salary increase. That means the youths of The Cameroons should get ready to ensure oldmen and women,with their twisted sense of judgement like Eteki do not outsmart them in the coming days. If the youths have to be the ones to sacrifice while others benefits, then the youths from now on would ensure in our next and final precision storming,the driving seat be ours.Corrupt civils servants should fight their own battles,afterall they are part of an unproductive bureaucracy, cowards in crime,embezzlement and bribery who are being rewarded at the expense of the heros of the february uprising.

Ours is fighting for our future. Youths cant be killed and sent summarily to jail for bigots like Eteki and co. Yes its a generational battle and we will not be pushed around again by government recognized laffards called opposition, who claim to speak for us. Meeting Biya and shaking hands with him on camera is not our agenda. It does just not even come close to our agenda. Our agenda is to get rid of the likes of Eteki and his gang of primitive criminals. The concession being made is simple,2011 , no more no less. Eteki, transmit this message to the men who sent you here. Its no spam or joke.

Eteki,debates are nice gestures, i dont think debating with you makes any sense.In fact we have over honoured you responding to your little lowlife sound zibes. Debates are useful in a democracy. Ours is far from a democracy. Because we belong to the new majority,our utmost agenda as of now is with brave hearts ensure we get rid of you guys using orthodox and unorthodoxe methods at our disposal.....Period . For now freedom is worth dieing for. Once again welcome to the forum. I guess and hope you are in to stay.