Country Report Cameroon May 2011

Outlook for 2011-12: Election watch

Despite rumours that Mr Biya will opt out of the presidential election to manage the political scene from the background, his candidacy for the October election is expected to be announced at the party congress in July, and little would prevent him from winning re-election for another seven-year mandate. The RDPC is then expected to add to its overwhelming majority in parliament in the 2012 legislative election. Through co-option and repression, the president has marginalised the opposition parties. The largest of them, the Social Democratic Front (SDF), which relies on its regional and anglophone support base, now holds only 16 parliamentary seats out of 180, compared with 43 in 1997. To highlight what it sees as irregularities in the election process, the SDF has filed several petitions in the courts to challenge the neutrality of the country's election commission, Elections Cameroon (Elecam). Recent changes to Elecam-which resulted from pressure from the SDF and the international community-amount to little more than cosmetic changes and the process will remain heavily skewed in favour of Mr Biya.

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