The President of the Cameroon People’s Party made the call early this week during a political program on Douala-based television station, My Media Prime TV, as the country prepares to organize the forthcoming 2025 presidential elections in October.
The President of the Cameroon People’s Party, CPP, Edith Kah Walla, and one of the country’s most outspoken opposition figures, has issued a bold call for Cameroonians to boycott the October 2025 presidential elections, describing the country’s electoral system as deeply flawed and unreformed. Speaking during a televised appearance on My Media Prime in Douala on Monday, June 23, the outspoken politician said participating in the upcoming elections under current conditions would be an endorsement of a process that has consistently failed the people. Kah Walla argued that, despite over three decades of multiparty politics in Cameroon, the core structures that govern elections remain unchanged.
She said that since 1992, Cameroonians have repeatedly gone to the polls under a system that does not guarantee fairness, transparency, or credibility. For her, the country’s electoral mechanism has become an elaborate ritual designed to maintain power in the hands of the same political elite, while opposition parties have become complicit by continuing to contest under broken rules. During the interview, the CPP leader reminded viewers of the national and international criticism that followed the 2018 presidential election, which was widely considered flawed.
She posed a rhetorical question: what, if anything, has changed since that contested vote? According to her, the answer is “nothing.” The same laws, the same electoral body, and the same delays in publishing vital documents such as the electoral register persist, she said. Citing Cameroon’s electoral code, which requires that the electoral register be made public by January 1 each year, she noted that this obligation has been ignored once again, even as the nation inches closer to another critical vote. Kah Walla used the platform to challenge her fellow opposition leaders, accusing them of prioritizing their individual ambitions over the collective good. She decried what she called a growing obsession with personalities, saying the current political conversation has been reduced to debates over whether one prefers Maurice Kamto, Cabral Libii, or Joshua Osih.
According to her, such distractions only serve the regime’s interests. None of these figures, she insisted, can succeed under the existing system, no matter how popular or regionally supported they may be. What Cameroonians need, Kah Walla argued, is not another round of contested elections but a united front among opposition forces demanding serious electoral reform. She believes the opposition must abandon business-as-usual tactics and adopt a posture of resistance. She called on all political actors, civil society, and ordinary citizens to rise up and refuse participation in elections until key reforms are implemented. In her words, “What will pressure the government is for us to come together as actors for action.
To start with, we say no to elections until we get reforms. Secondly, we say Cameroonians must come out for protest until we get reforms.” Kah Walla was visibly frustrated by what she described as the opposition’s addiction to legislative and municipal positions, warning that their participation in flawed elections only legitimizes a system that betrays the people year after year. She said their silence in the face of systemic manipulation is no longer acceptable, and that history will judge them as enablers if they continue on the same path.
The current political climate in Cameroon remains tense, as the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM, tightens its grip on power. President Paul Biya, now 92 years old and in power since 1982, has not officially declared whether he will seek another term. Yet his party continues preparations as if his candidacy is a foregone conclusion. Kah Walla’s warning is clear: unless the rules of the game are changed, the outcome is already known. She concluded with a chilling reminder that Cameroonians are facing a pivotal moment in their history. To proceed to elections under these circumstances, she said, is to knowingly walk into a trap.
