In his address on Monday, Maurice Kamto, opposition party leader and president of the MRC party said Cameroon should be prepared for elections, noting that citizens will never accept any form of succession at the head of the state.
“We stand against any manipulation, even in the constitution, to take over the supreme function by other means except elections”
Kamto’s speech has raised brows as to what’s cooking up from the presidency right now
The speech comes weeks after an uproar on social media which declared Biya dead. The president had not made a public appearance for over a month in the midst of a crisis.
But the ministry of communication denied his death and later on, pictures of Biya appeared on social media, followed by a speech in May which was widely analysed by critics to not show one of the President’s ears.
Kamto insisted that prior to any elections in Cameroon, there must be a resolution to the Anglophone crisis in the North West and South West regions, and an amendment of the electoral code
Below is the entire speech, loosely translated by our team
My dear compatriots,
On many occasions, and recently again in my address of 19 May 2020, I have drawn your attention to the maneuvers to organize the succession at the head of our country.
I can tell you today that things are clear. The artisans are more than ever at work. Through this, they want to speed up the course of history for their purposes, in contempt of all the democratic rules of transfer of power and suffering of the people of Cameroon, I meant your suffering.
Let it be clear to all: we will never accept any form of succession at the head of the state. We stand against any manipulation, even in the Constitution, to take over the supreme function by means other than elected means.
We are fighting against the organization of new popular elections in Cameroon without filling the two major pre-resolution of the armed conflict in the North-West and South-West, and the consensual reform of the electoral system.
Nothing or any political circumstances, even exceptional, can be used to hold new elections without respect for these two screenings. We have made concrete proposals for the resolution of either crisis.
My dear compatriots,
As you know, following the presidential election of 07 October 2018, the Constitutional Council laid a hard blow to Cameroon’s democracy, by winning a candidate who had not gathered the majority of the votes in the polls.
Following this forfeiture, militants and supporters of the Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon were tortured, tortured and then illegally thrown into prison for peacefully protesting this election hold-up, against the war in the nosso, and against the the resources dedicated to the organization of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, finally removed in Cameroon.
All the levers of power were activated against national resistance to the electoral robbery. Whether it’s the police, the gendarmerie, the territorial administration, the public media and even justice, supposed to be the ultimate resort of the citizen, the artisans of the estate at the summit of the state have nothing spared to fight against the people, against you, my dear compatriots.
But you stayed up, proud to lead the fight for the liberation of our country.
The outstanding response you massively gave to the call for a boycott of the double legislative and municipal elections of February 2020, 9, which the RCM launched on November 25, 2019, is a clear proof of this.
By your ” NO ” to this double vote, you have hammered and repeated your ” No to the electoral hold-up “. Because, it must be clear that Mr. Paul Biya’s regime remains deaf, indifferent and dismissive in the face to the suffering of our martyred people of the nosso and the legitimate expectations of the Cameroonian people regarding the consensual reform of the electoral system.
He knows that such a reform, if it is well done, will surely lead to the end of fraudulent elections that have sadly punctuated the history of our country.
You understand why those who do not want to change through the democratic way in our country are at work and willing to cross all the lines, with the support of their external supporters. All this is happening before your eyes. I warn you so that no one will know, neither today nor later.
We are at a turning point in our history. These are those moments when every people must find the spring and the necessary burst to choose the course of their destiny. Through our collective vigilance and our sense of patriotic duty, we must spare our country another disaster of almost half a century that is being prepared through the usurpation of power.
That is why I repeat with serious that the lack of a political resolution of the civil war that the biya regime has caused in the North-West and South-West, and without a consensual reform of the electoral system in which the main parties will take part political formations and credible civil society organizations, the mrc and the People of Change will not accept a new popular election to be held in Cameroon.
Neither will he accept any manipulation of the Constitution to organize a succession at the head of the state by a non-elected mechanism.
Might as well say that the announcement of an election in Cameroon without the pre-resolution of these two crises that undermine our country will sound like a statement of war. And all those who will engage the country in such an adventure will answer it before our people and history.
Too much is too much!
The Cameroonian people have suffered enough from the gluttony of a few people whose incompetence, irresponsibility and cynicism still spread dramatic to the face of the world as part of the fight against the of-19 pandemic, and who believe they can retain power forever only by state terror.
It is time for the transfer of power in our country to finally go through democratic processes admitted in all modern societies; that the people of Cameroon have the opportunity to give themselves freely and in the transparency of legitimate leaders, who are required to return to them. accounts on the management of public affairs.
We’re ready! torture, arbitrary prison and humiliation, we already know them! Fifteen of us, including the first Vice-President of the mrc, Mamadou Yacouba Mota, are still in jail. And if death has to come for this cause, let it come!
Stand by, my fellow compatriots, so that together we will begin the final phase of the struggle for the liberation of Cameroon and the advent of democracy in the political life of our country.
You must finally be able to weigh on the destiny of our nation, count on a better future for your children, build a strong country and ensure international reach.
Because the path of democratic elections for access to power is the one we have chosen strongly since the beginning of our political commitment, I invite you and repeat my call to register massively on the electoral lists, so that when the time comes, The expression of your choice is massive, clear and without call.
This is a call for the general mobilization of Cameroonian people from all sides, to take our country out of the night of a dictatorship drunk from the power and fruit of the plunder, and open a new page of the national construction, that of a free society, based on the rule of law, open and giving each of his children a chance.
I told you, I will never betray you!
Long live Cameroon!
Yaoundé June 1st, 2020
The President-elect
Maurice Kamto
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