Editorial: Cameroon needs rotating presidency.

There are politicians in the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM, who, in their concealed hypocrisy, are drumming for President Paul Biya to run for an eight mandate! Some are even touting the name of his eldest son, Franck Emmanuel Biya, as if the country is a monarchy.

What has so far not been given little consideration on the national radar is a rotating presidency, to give Anglophones a shot at the nation’s top job. 

Afterall, the first two Heads of State who have been at the apex of State, since reunification in 1961, have been Francophones.

That reunification was forged on the condition that if a Francophone is president, the vice shall be an Anglophone and "vice versa".

But for some 63 years, Francophones have been on the driving seat, while their cousins from the North West and South West Regions, who in the worst scenario would have been second in command, have been humiliated to the fourth position on the ladder of power.

That has contributed to the bloody conflict that has made the country one of the six hotspots of blood oozing in the continent.

An Anglophone as president, in a rotating format, would not only help to end the ongoing conflict in the two English-speaking Regions, but develop a country where basic amenities and infrastructure like roads, electricity, water, education and health delivery system remain apologetic.

Senior Associate and Regional Director for West and Central Africa at the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, NDI, Dr Christopher Fomunyoh, believes it is time  an Anglophone becomes Cameroon’s next Head of State.

Why? His answer, which The Guardian Post identifies with, is that: “An Anglophone can fix this country. Not just because it is an Anglophone; not just because our cultural upbringing has embedded in us certain values of fairness, of justice, of equity and equilibrium vis-à-vis everyone but also because it is someone who has the credentials and has proven his/her worth”.

He added that an Anglophone as Head of State, will also “be able to address the grievances of Cameroonians across the board and be able to give citizens a sense of belonging. It is that lack of sense of belonging that is stirring up the conflict in the North West and South West Regions”

Having an indigene of either the North West or South West Region as Head of State, Dr Fomunyoh added, “will be another major way of sending a message across to citizens that all Cameroonians are equal.”

He added that: “It is a way of showing that every Cameroonian is a hundred percent a citizen of Cameroon...there is no second-class citizen. If that is the case, then let’s show it. If the taste of the pudding is in the eating, as it is commonly said, then let’s see it happen in Cameroon”. 

The Foumban Conference had envisaged power rotation. Cameroon will not be the first country to do so. 

Throughout history, democracies have practised rotation in office and have periodically required certain political officials to step down and allow others to take their places. Presidential term limits are also a contemporary manifestation of this phenomenon. 

But why should democracies insist upon rotation?

Author E.S. Staveley, in his 1972 book, ‘Greek and Roman Voting and Elections’, writes that rotation is a political "…trajectory where the average citizen would gain active experience in every aspect of local governance, from finance to foreign policy. In our time, rotation might be easier to introduce, without need for traumatic constitutional amendments".

For example, the ruling CPDM party, which has been in power for over four decades, could amend their internal text to rotate the post of President, who automatically becomes their "natural" presidential candidate. 

At the moment, the party has no Anglophone, even on the front passenger's seat, after the passage of its Deputy National President S.A.N. Angwafor.

The main trigger of the lingering Anglophone conflict has been the marginalisation of Anglophones; to the point some claim they are treated as second class citizens and even deprived of what should have been theirs.

Dr Fomunyoh pointed out in the interview we published yesterday that: “If the constitution had not been changed to make the Speaker of the National Assembly the third personality and not the second, [Hon S.T. Muna] would have succeeded President Ahmadou Ahidjo, when he decided to quit power on November 4, 1982”

But a Francophone Prime Minister was made Ahidjo's "constitutional successor", prompting Muna to complain that he was "like a Reverend Father who officiates at marriage ceremonies but is not allowed to get married".

Over six decades of Francophones as president of Cameroon, without an Anglophone, even next in the power hierarchy is, as the French will say, "trop c'est trop".

Even if the CPDM egocentric pecking order wants to maintain it Francophone hegemony, the opposition should present a single presidential candidate.

 In their projection of a transition government, they should put a rotatory presidency on their manifesto, which could rotate among the four geopolitical zones of the country-Anglophones, Grand North and Grand West. It shouldalso should include the Littoral and the Grand Centre, as has been postulated by some articulate political commentators so as to ensure the over touted national unity, "living together" and eschew what has mockingly been referred to as "presidential monarchy".