Cameroon’s Democracy Crisis Deepens
On Saturday, November 29, the Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC) was once again prevented from exercising a basic democratic right: the right to assemble.
The party’s extraordinary convention legal, publicly announced, and aimed only at renewing its leadership was banned by the Biya government, using the same recycled excuse: “risk of public disorder.”
This phrase has become a political weapon in Cameroon.
It is how an aging autocracy avoids accountability, silences opponents, and maintains power long after losing legitimacy.
A Political Party Under Siege
All day long, police and gendarmes surrounded the MRC headquarters in the Odza neighborhood of Yaoundé. A barricade was erected. Access was blocked.
Militants who traveled from across the country could only stand by helplessly, watching the forces of the state shut down their own political home.
Elsewhere, the same scene:
At Maurice Kamto’s residence, all access roads were sealed off by a heavy police presence. The opposition leader was, once again, placed under de facto house arrest without a warrant, without charges, without justification.
The MRC described the tactic accurately:
“An illegal, unjustified, permanent siege of its national president.”
“A violation of the Constitution and human rights.”
This is not security.
This is repression.
43 Years of Biya: A Long Record of Human Rights Abuses
Paul Biya president since 1982 and his ruling party, the CPDM, have built one of Africa’s most enduring authoritarian systems.
What happened to the MRC is not an exception. It is the rule.
Cameroon’s political landscape is defined by:
1. Systematic repression of opposition parties
Arbitrary bans, blocked meetings, police intimidation, and frequent arrests.
2. Militarization of politics
Security forces routinely deployed to silence dissent rather than protect citizens.
3. Abusive security practices
Torture, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and killings documented by leading human-rights organizations.
4. Elections stripped of meaning
Term limits removed in 2008.
Electoral bodies controlled by the presidency.
State media turned into propaganda tools.
5. A judiciary under executive control
Courts are unable to check power or protect citizens’ rights.
6. Massive crackdowns in the Anglophone regions
Village burnings, mass arrests, killings, and millions displaced since 2016.
7. Shrinking civic and media space
Journalists jailed, NGOs harassed, protests criminalized, and the internet itself shut down when criticism grows too loud.
For 43 years, the Biya regime has relied on fear, force, and institutional capture to stay in power.
Why the MRC Ban Matters
The banning of the MRC’s convention is not just an attempt to humiliate one party.
It is a warning to all Cameroonians:
Political rights exist only when the regime decides to tolerate them.
If a peaceful, legally registered political party cannot even hold a meeting…
If a presidential candidate can be placed under house arrest without a warrant…
If citizens cannot gather without fear of police attacks…
…then Cameroon is not a democracy.
It is a controlled political space, carefully managed to ensure one result: CPDM domination forever.
Cameroon Deserves Better
A nation of 28 million people cannot remain hostage to a shrinking elite clinging to power. The courage of the citizens and militants who stood outside the MRC headquarters symbolizes something deeper:
Cameroon’s democratic aspiration refuses to die.
Despite arrests, intimidation, and decades of authoritarian rule, Cameroonians continue to demand:
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political freedoms
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accountable leadership
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end to militarized governance
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respect for human rights
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genuine democratic change
The world must pay attention.
Cameroon is not stable it is silenced.
And silence is not peace.
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