Authoritarianism in Robes: How the Biya State Used Law to Eliminate Its Only Challenger

How the Council slammed the door

• Ground invoked: “plurality of endorsements” after the MANIDEM ticket allegedly filed two presidential nominees.

• Kamto’s counter-argument: the second name was inserted by a faction propped up by the Ministry of Territorial Administration (MINAT) in a bid to sabotage his paperwork.

• Council posture: it deemed the petition “manifestly unfounded”, brushed aside evidence of document tampering and refused to hear final rebuttals.

No further sittings are scheduled; procedurally, the dossier is dead. Politically, it is dynamite.

Front-page fury: what Cameroon woke up to

Across linguistic lines, one refrain dominates: the court has become an annex of Etoudi.

Crackdown in three acts

1. Militarised capital – Armoured carriers ringed the Congress Palace hours before the ruling; tear-gas rounds chased would-be protestors down Avenue Kennedy. Reports of phone searches and on-the-spot “fines” stretched as far as Edea.

2. Media blackout – State broadcaster CRTV withheld live coverage; NAJA TV’s private stream was cut under threat. A journalism student spent 48 hours in custody for filming from the gallery.

3. ‘URGENT’ communiqué – MINAT boss Paul Atanga Nji warned that any “unauthorised gathering” or online call to protest would trigger immediate arrest and prosecution, effectively criminalising hashtags.

Together the moves confirm what scholars call electoral authoritarianism: ballots allowed, real competition strangled.

MANIDEM fires back

In a midnight blast titled “The road to victory is always strewn with ambushes,” MANIDEM branded the verdict “a political coup against the Cameroonian people,” accused Atanga Nji of forging party papers, and urged citizens “to turn the Biya page.”

Why the exclusion matters

• Biya unopposed, yet unloved – The 92-year-old incumbent now faces a field of lightweights, but the manner of Kamto’s ouster deepens doubts about any mandate he claims in October.

• Investor optics – Headlines of arrests, phone seizures and a court packed with ruling-party grandees spook already-skittish financiers.

• Security risk – Marginalising a popular francophone opposition while a secessionist war burns in the Anglophone regions risks a two-front legitimacy crisis.

Kamto’s next cards

1. International tribunals: He can petition the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, though Yaoundé routinely ignores its orders.

2. Street leverage: Civil-society groups hint at nationwide silent vigils; the regime has pre-emptively outlawed them.

3. Coalition politics: Talks are under way to back another opposition name or call for a turnout boycott, betting low participation will haunt Biya’s optics.

The take-away

The Constitutional Council has spoken, but so have the headlines: “gangsterism,” “hostage-taking,” “perversion.” By striking Kamto, the Biya apparatus may have scored a tactical victory; strategically, it has exposed its fear of a fair contest. In Cameroon, the gavel may silence a candidate, but it cannot hush a country living the consequences of 43 years of one-man rule.

Cameroon Concord will continue monitoring every checkpoint, communiqué and courtroom echo as the October race limps toward a ballot stripped of suspense but brimming with consequence.