Several CPDM bigwigs have in the last over three days, been openly engaged in singing contrasting lyrics over the chances of the party’s long-serving leader running as its candidate for the forthcoming mega political showdown. While the Minister of Communication, Rene Emmanuel Sadi has continued standing strong on his view that chances of the Head of State contesting remain 50/50, other bigshots like the Minister of Higher Education and the CPDM’s communication secretary says the structure is 100% sure Biya will be the party’s candidate.
The Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party, the CPDM has been thrown into full-blown internal crisis and a relative lack of direction over the candidature of its National President and Head of State, Paul Biya, in the forthcoming 2025 presidential election. Several of the party’s bigwigs have in the last over three days, been openly engaged in singing contrasting lyrics over the chances of the party’s long-serving leader running as its candidate in the mega political showdown expected to hold in October this year.
While the Minister of Communication, Rene Emmanuel Sadi has continued standing strong on his view that chances of the 92-year-old contesting remain 50/50, other party front leaders like the Minister of Higher Education and the CPDM’s communication secretary, Prof Jacques Fame Ndongo says the structure is 100% sure Biya will be the party’s candidate.
With just barely three months to the October elections, the internal disruption within the party has left many increasingly asking questions about the effectiveness that the CPDM party will have in the forthcoming elections. This, analysts argue, is more disturbingly so as the crisis comes amid other issues that are believed to have weakened the party’s foundation in the lead up to the crucial elections particularly the recent collapse in the relationship between Biya and long-time allies, Issa Tchiroma Bakary of the Cameroon National Salvation Front, the FSNC party and the National Union for Democracy and Progress’ Bello Bouba Maigari.
The rising internal breakdown is also believed to getting compounded by what has been termed the disorganization within the party as the party stretches with proper coordination in its bid to mitigate the possible damages that have been caused by the collapse in Biya’s alliance with the top allies who are seen as major threats to Biya in the vote-rich three northern regions.
CPDM’s ever-strong engine grinding facing disruptions
According to media sources, the Minister of State, Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the Minister of State and Minister of Higher Education, Prof Jacques Fame Ndongo, his colleagues the Minister of Communications, Rene Emmanuel Sadi and the Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, have recently been leading what is now being described as a threatening rivalry over the hot cake topic of Biya’s candidature in the 2025 poll. Since Bello Bouba and Issa Tchiroma announced their candidatures for the election in a shocking plot twist, the CPDM has been left in a near complete unease.
To mitigate the damages, the Minister of State, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh has been holding consultation talks at the Unity Palace with CPDM bigwigs since the start of this week to boost momentum within the party and come up with new strategies ahead of the October election. Since the exercise began, CPDM delegations from the North West, the Littoral and other regions have taken turns at the Unity Palace for the exercise. One key message has been consistent on the table in the course of the exercise: the move to present President Biya as the party’s candidate for the 2025 election.
The likes of Minister Paul Atanga Nji have come out openly restating their position on the possibilities of the 92-year-old leader contesting the election as the party’s flagbearer in the political showdown, strongly arguing that there has never been a doubt at the level of the institution over Biya’s status as the man for the job. Speaking in an interview after the exercise, Atanga Nji further came out to reassure the population that the North West Region will hand Biya a 100% victory at the regional level in a bid to further bolster his argument.
Clash of communication bosses While the likes of Ngoh Ngoh and Atanga Nji have sang the same lyrics on the candidature headache and promised a smooth victory for the CPDM National President, the story has been completely different particularly at the level of the communications bosses of the CPDM party as an institution and the entire regime as a bloc. Government spokesperson and Communication Minister, Rene Sadi and the Communications Secretary of the CPDM Central Committee, Prof Jacques Fame Ndongo, have since Monday, both marketed contrasting opinions about the Biya candidature.
Minister Rene Sadi who doubles as a member of the party’s elitist and top-ranked central committee, said in an interview with RFI on Monday that Biya’s candidature in the poll remains a 50/50 affair. “I am not a soothsayer, to tell you the truth. He will make up his own mind. And he is a man of great foresight and wisdom. He will know how to tell his compatriots what his position will be. Its 50/50,” the government spokesperson stated in the interview before going on to further grant another interview to German broadcaster, Deutsche Welle yesterday to further buttress the point. However, in an interview with Rfi just hours after Rene Sadi’s declaration on Monday this week, Prof Fame Ndongo stated that contrary to what the government spokesperson had stated in his earlier interview, the CPDM party is sure that Biya will contest as candidate. “I am telling you that he is a candidate. Because, having criticized all the sources, I can tell you peremptorily that he is the CPDM candidate in the presidential election.
Everything else is guesswork,” Prof Fame Ndongo stated, insisting that there is no confusion over the candidature of the party’s National President. “There is no cacophony. One speaks for the government of the Republic and the other for the party in power. There is no state party. I speak for the party, not for the government. Minister Sadi, who is a brother, a friend, speaks on behalf of the State, on behalf of the government,” he emphasized. Prof Fame Ndongo said the party is completely unbothered by all external or internal figures questioning the possible candidature of the long-serving leader, emphasizing that the structure remains firm on riding on its statutes which he says fully gives Biya the leeway to contest as a candidate even without the holding of a congress to designate him. “The CPDM candidate is designated.
Article 27, paragraph three, of the party statutes. What does this article say? The National Chairman of the CPDM is the party’s candidate for the presidential election. He is the candidate and I say that categorically,” Prof Fame Ndongo said. “We don’t need a congress. We don’t need anything else. We have our statutes. That’s positive law. In other words, Article 27 of the party statutes leaves no room for doubt. The national president of the CPDM is the candidate of the CPDM, of that party, in the presidential election. Our statutes are clear. To be a CPDM candidate in the presidential election, you have to be the party’s national president. I don’t know of any other national president of the CPDM. So, it is the national president of the party, His Excellency Paul
