Like Fru Ndi, like Kamto: Tchiroma in yet another elections boycott blunder!.

It is a recurrence which pundits say, point to the direction that some opposition leaders in the country, have learnt nothing from the past, reason they continue to record blunders, even when least expected.

To some, the actions of some of the country’s most influential political figures partly account for President Paul Biya’s long stay in power. They say, it is particular with those who have built some level of capital, especially at certain defining moments.

History have it that they often opt for the politics of empty chair through boycotts that only end up complicating their usefulness in future elections.

The Social Democratic Front, SDF, first served Cameroonians a boycott notice, which many voters received in disappointment, during the March 1992 legislative polls.

Decades after, it was the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, MRC, of Prof Maurice Kamto, that boycotted the municipal and legislative polls of February 9, 2020. 

A third opposition figure has entered the list in the person of Issa Tchiroma Bakary, leader of the Cameroon National Salvation Front, FSNC, party.

Tchiroma, who came second in the October 12, 2025 presidential election, with 35.19 percent votes cast, according to the Constitutional Council, announced over the weekend through his Spokesperson, Barrister Alice Nkom, his party’s boycott of the municipal and legislative elections, expected this year.

Tracing what has befallen the SDF and MRC, after boycotting elections at the time their platforms’ appeal to the population was strong and comparing it to the announced decision of Tchiroma, pundits say it is yet another major opposition political plunder in the making.

SDF’s 1992 blunder still haunting party 

When the emblematic leader of the Social Democratic Front, SDF, the late Ni John Fru Ndi and his political platform stayed away from the legislative elections of March 1992, the reading was that he was sending a very strong message to the CPDM.

Yet, the absence of the SDF gave room for the National Union for Democracy and Progress, UNDP, of Bello Bouba Maigari, to feed from political grounds the Fru Ndi-led party had watered. 

It won 68 parliamentary seats, while the CPDM lost grounds in 92 constituencies, with victory in only 88 areas.

The Union des Populations du Cameroun, UPC, then under the leadership of Henri Hogbe Nlend, won 18 seats while the Movement for the Defense of the Republic, MDR, of the late Dakolle Daisalla, earned six seats.

Desperate to get a majority in parliament, the MDR reached a deal with CPDM, enabling the ruling party to have a relative majority of 92 seats in the 180-member chamber. Government business then rested solely with the CPDM and UNDP.

The SDF was licking its wounds for giving space for other political parties, which then did not enjoy the huge grassroots support it had then to rise. 

Till date, analysts hold the view that if the SDF had not boycotted the legislative election of that year, it would have won more parliamentary seats and moved on to win the presidential election or maintain a majority in the National Assembly at worst. 

This, they say, would have made government business serious and change the political trajectory of Cameroon. Where the SDF is today, barely struggling to stay alive politically, it is being said, remains connected to the blunder of having boycotted the legislative election of 1992.

Kamto, MRC goes the Fru Ndi, SDF way

While lessons of Fru Ndi and the SDF’s boycott had been analysed from all angles in political circles and within university amphitheatres, Cameroon was yet to live a similar blunder, 28 years after. 

It happened again with the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, MRC, and its leader, Prof Maurice Kamto.

Kamto, who emerged second in the 2018 presidential election, winning over 14 percent of votes cast and enjoying huge public support, did the unexpected in February 2020.

While the country was picking steam with many expecting the MRC to win parliamentary seats, he announced his party’s boycott of the February 9, 2020 twin polls.

The decision, which shocked and shook the polity, later created uneasiness within the MRC, with many supporters who had nursed parliamentary ambitions bowing out of the party. 

Many of such persons are viewed as having never forgiven Kamto for taking the decision which they continue to see as having killed their political ambitions.

It didn’t take long for Kamto to taste the consequences of the 2020 boycott.  Despite being a professor of law and conscious of the provisions of Section 121 (1) of the Electoral Code, which demands having elected officials before a party can invest a candidate for presidential election, he dared the rule.

When the chips were down in the October 12, 2025 presidential election, Kamto, a political giant, was left hurrying to get invested by other political outfits. 

He ended up with the trouble-plagued African Movement for New Independence and Democracy, MANIDEM. 

Despite getting the backing of the late Anicet Ekane-led faction of MANIDEM, Kamto could not go pass the Constitutional Council. His name that had been flushed out by the Electoral Board of Elections Cameroon, ELECAM, was further deleted among presidential candidates at the Constitutional Council.

Many believed that if Kamto had not ordered the MRC out of the 2020 twin polls, the party would have ended up with Members of Parliament, MPs and Councillors; and in the same vein making his candidacy sure for last year’s presidential poll. 

Beyond not running for the election, Kamto was forced to resign from the MRC to become a member of MANIDEM, as required by law. When things didn’t work at MANIDEM, he sort to return to the MRC, creating more trouble for the formation.

Today, he finds himself leading the MRC, having been re-elected through video conferencing in a bid to beat administrative proscription of the elective convention.  Kamto’s political troubles are viewed as being by-products of MRC’s decision to boycot the 2020 twin polls.

Tchiroma refusing to learn from Fru Ndi, Kamto blunders!

If expectations were high in 1992 for Fru Ndi and 2020 for Kamto, this year’s twin elections, observers say, hold even higher stakes for the FSNC, Cameroon’s future and Tchiroma’s relevance. 

 At a time voices of change are becoming louder, many say Tchiroma and at best the FSNC, ought to build on the verve of 2025, to win councils and parliamentary seats. Contrary to such expectations, he has opted to go the Fru Ndi and Kamto way.

The boycott option, political analysts say, will have no political spinoffs for the polity. They argue that Tchiroma ought to leave the FSNC stay on as a vibrant political platform for more voices of change to emerge and guarantee the vitality of the country’s push for change.  

Boycotting this year’s twin elections, it is being said, and loudly so, could mean Tchiroma simply saying goodnight politically and unknowingly burying the FSNC. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3678 of Monday January 19, 2026