By Nchendzengang Tatah
The two English-speaking regions of Cameroon have, since 2016, seen the breakout of a crisis (known commonly as the Anglophone Crisis) which metamorphosed into an armed separatist fight for independence. This struggle for an independent state of “Ambazonia” to encompass the present regions of the North West and South West (NW/SW), which were formerly British Southern Cameroons, has in many ways given Paul Biya, Cameroon’s head of state since 1982, a tight grip on the political stakes. This has been due to increasing voter apathy and fear instilled by armed separatist fighters during elections.
Until 2023, all seven elected senators from the North West were from the opposition, notably the Social Democratic Front (SDF). The dynamics changed from the SDF’s win in 2018, when it broke the status quo, having a majority ruling party electorate.
At the municipal level, the opposition has been swept out completely of the South West with the fall of the SDF in Tiko, Kumba I, II, and III in 2020. In the North West, where multiparty politics was born in the country, the opposition could retain just one council, Bamenda III. Parliament can only hear the resistant voices of Hons. Njong Everistus and Wainachi Honourine of Njinikom/Fundong and Belo/Bum constituencies, respectively, from the North West SDF fold.
The government organised elections in the North West and South West have, since the crisis, been marked by gunfiring, killing, looting, and separatist-imposed lockdown. British daily, The Guardian, reported after Biya’s seventh win that the turnout in these regions was only 10% compared to previous years of stability. It further blamed the unceremonious position of the leading Anglophone opposition party, SDF, on the separatist-imposed boycott and ghost town. The international news platform also updated on how the 2018 Presidential Elections on October 7 were marred by a ban from separatists and greeted by sporadic gunshots throughout the day. This had significantly frightened the population, of which a handsome number had already escaped the regions before election day, and several thousand more relocated to Nigeria as refugees. Statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) showed that over 20,000 Cameroonian refugees had fled to Nigeria by 2018 due to the armed violence in the NW/SW.
The tense climate at the time of the 2018 polls led to the reduction of over 2300 polling stations in the North West to just 74 voting centres. This measure not only put the appointed voting centres far away from most of the population but also posed a greater risk to access. It was not documented how many people, be it military, civilians, and armed separatists in total, had lost their lives in the course of the elections that day; Biya, however, got a victory with a wide margin. Ranking state officials in these regions utilised military security to access voting stations and cast their votes. The elections in these regions unfolded with little or no observation from external officials, giving room for possible manipulation and fraud.
This 12 October 2025, Cameroonians will once again be heading for the second general elections with the English-speaking regions in troubled political waters. Biya, 92, will be seeking an eighth term after 43 years at the helm of state. With relative calm having returned in some areas of the North West and South West, the probability, according to pundits, remains slim for opposition to overturn the CPDM hegemony fostered by the exclusion attitude of separatist warlords, which still lingers.
