Will ailing Marcel Niat Njifenji be allowed to partake in Senatorial elections?
The octogenarian has been Senate president for the past 10 years
By Nde Laura
April 14, 2013, witnessed the first-ever Senatorial elections in Cameroon. This came after the head of state, Paul Biya signed a decree on February 27, 2013, to convene the upper house of Parliament for the first time in Cameroon’s history.
The Senate body comprised 100 seats of which 70 were to be chosen by the 10, 636 electors from the 360 municipal councils. The remaining 30 seats were to be appointed by the president of the Republic with 3 taken from each region in the ten regions of the country and 5 years was adopted as the mandate period.
Out of the four political parties that participated in the 2013 Senatorial elections namely the Cameroons People Democratic Movement, CPDM, the Social Democratic Front, SDF, the National Union for Democratic Progress, UNDP, and the Cameroon Democratic Union, CDU, The CPDM emerged with the highest votes. They obtained 56 seats out of 70 with a 73.12% and the remaining 14 were won by the SDF.
The Senate therefore, comprised 83 CPDM senators, 14 SDF senators, 1 MDR senator, 1 UNDP senator, and 1 FSNC senator in 2013, and Marcel NiatNjifenji, an appointed CPDM senator emerged as president of the Senate.
Consequently in March 2018, during the next senatorial elections, the CPDM won 63 out of the 70 seats, in 9 out of the 10 regions of the country. The remaining seats went to the SDF.
Marcel Niat Njifenji 88, has since 2013 maintained the position as president of the Senate. It should be recalled that in March 2021 during the election of the permanent bureau of the senate for the legislative year, he was re-elected for another term as president and had 85 out of the 93 votes. Senator Aboubakary Abdoulaye was also reelected as Senior Vice President.
The CPDM party currently has the highest number of senators as they hold positions in 316 out of the 360 municipal councils in the country with the opposition parties left with only 44 to share. The National Union for Democratic Progress party NUDP with 16 councils, The CDU, has 7 councils, and the SDF, has 4.
CPDM takes the lead in 9 regions with 87 senators out of 100 seats, the SDF comes second with 7 senators, the UNDP with 2, the National Alliance for Democracy and Progress (ANDP), the Front for National Salvation of Cameroon (FSNC), the Movement for the Defense of the Republic (MDR) and the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC), all with 1 each were appointed by the president.
The question now is, will President Paul Biya or his entourage allow ailing Senate President Marcel Niat to maintain his position? If Senator Niat is not permitted to declare his candidature, that will mean another person will likely take over from him. President Paul Biya to appease Anglophones may consider someone from Manyu Division in the South West region or Mezam in the North West region, pundits have said.
