The People’s Republic of Cameroon is heading towards a crossroads: on 12 October 2025, presidential elections will be held. Just a few weeks ago, Cameroon’s current president Paul Biya, aged 91, announced his run for what would be his 8th consecutive presidential term. Thus, if he were elected and served his entire term, he would officially be Africa’s longest and oldest ruling leader. Yet already, having been in power for over 40 years as the second democratically elected president after the country’s independence from France in 1960, Biya’s rule has stood out for its length – with many questioning the efficiency and impact of his decade-long presidency. Specifically, since its independence, the country’s sociopolitical climate has been marked by upheaval and turmoil: economic instability, sociopolitical insecurity, and rising poverty are at the forefront of persisting and escalating challenges in the central African country. Additionally, the very democratic system that was supposed to safeguard the population’s rights and freedoms has visibly crumbled throughout the past decades. Among suspicions of electoral fraud, freedom of speech has been heavily restricted with political opponents being jailed and tortured, intensifying societal doubts about Biya’s past and future presidential terms. 

Yet, the current president attempts to portray the opposite. During his announcement to run for an 8th presidential term, which Biya justified with the “‘numerous and insurgent calls’ by people from all regions in Cameroon and the diaspora,” he claimed that the Cameroonian population could “(r)est assured that my determination to serve you matches the urgency of the challenges we face.” He additionally promised that “the best is yet to come.” Yet, skepticism about Biya’s candidacy as well as his promises have grown significantly. Now opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who recently left Biya’s government by stepping back as minister of employment and vocational training to run against Biya in the upcoming election, described Cameroon under Biya’s rule as a “broken” country that has institutionalized “abuse, contempt and the confiscation of power.” But not only political opponents have actively spoken out against Biya’s candidacy but also members of the Catholic Church, who remain highly influential in Cameroon. Particularly, a Priest from the Douala Archdiocese has appealed to Biya, demanding him to “(g)ive Cameroonians (the opportunity) to instill a new spirit in a new homeland.” The Douala Archdiocese ultimately prompted Biya to immediately withdraw his candidacy for the upcoming elections, hinting at the necessity for change to unfold in the central African country. 

Specifically, the yearning demand for sociopolitical change stems from the various challenges that have pushed Cameroon further away from prosperity, and instead towards instability and despair. One of the country’s most pressing issues is the Anglophone conflict in Cameroon’s southwestern and northwestern regions, where the country’s English-speaking minority is most dominant. Historically, the linguistic divide between the French and English-speaking population stems from colonial times, as Cameroon was occupied and governed by French as well as British authorities. Although both languages became Cameroon’s official languages post-independence, most of the country’s sociopolitical affairs have predominantly centered around French, which has made the English-speaking minority in Cameroon’s western regions feel increasingly threatened in their identity.Therefore, in 2016, what had started out as civil demonstrations by Cameroon’s English-speaking minority as a response against the French-majority government’s imposition of the French legal system in the Anglophone regions of the country, spiraled into an internal conflict. Ultimately, Cameroon’s state police and the Anglophone minority clashed, which the African Union heavily criticized, labeling the use of violence on both sides “deadly and disproportionate (…).” Yet, international calls for diplomacy were quickly suffocated by the crisis’ rapid escalation. Separatist, armed groups were set up, while Anglophone separatist leaders called for autonomy and independence for what they called the ‘Federal Republic of Ambazonia’. Such demands were met with even more force and violence by Cameroon’s French officials and military. Notably, over the past nine years, civilians have suffered most from the conflict.

To date, five million Anglophone Cameroonians have been dragged into the conflict – equivalent to one-fifth of the total population. At least 6,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes. One civilian elucidated that seeing people’s body parts being chopped off in the streets has become a regular occurrence, while other civilians have added that “no one is safe.” Cameroon’s resulting displacement crisis has since been labeled as the “world’s most neglected” catastrophe by the Norwegian Refugee Council. Until today efforts to solve the crisis have not succeeded and many Cameroonians blame current president Biya for that. However, public criticism of Biya’s domestic policies has been heavily restricted, which further adds to civil society’s serious discontent with Biya’s presidency. In recent years the killing of opposition leaders and journalists has intensified. In 2018, the opposition candidate Maurice Kamto (from the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, CRM) was imprisoned for 9 months after publicly questioning the outcome of the year’s presidential elections. Only because of strong international pressure was Kamto eventually released. The World Press Freedom Index further underscores such trends. Cameroon currently ranks 131 out of 180 listed countries. Civil society, including opposition candidates as well as journalists, is increasingly targeted, prosecuted and imprisoned under Biya’s presidency, seriously undermining Cameroon’s democracy.

Furthermore, Cameroon’s economy has been struggling for the past decade. Besides dealing with the repercussions of COVID-19, Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis has put additional pressure on wealth and food security. To this day, over 23% of Cameroon’s 30 million inhabitants live below the extreme poverty line, with children below the age of 5 at the forefront of such socioeconomic vulnerability. The country’s GDP, although now slowly recovering, has taken a serious dip throughout the past decades, with Cameroonians living on $2.15 per day, on average. On top of that, the possession and access to land has become incredibly difficult for most Cameroonians, which further shifts agricultural production to big and wealthy firms instead of to local individuals and businesses. Biya, although having promised to increase Cameroon’s economic prosperity, has failed miserably in upholding and fulfilling his promises.  

Therefore, this year, Cameroon is facing one of the most important decisions in the country’s present-day history. Given the social, economic, and political turmoil that Cameroon has experienced throughout the past decades, Cameroon’s civil society must critically engage with Paul Biya’s capabilities and competencies as the country’s president. Yet, such criticism goes far beyond his inability to govern effectively as his health issues are intensifying but additionally concern his efforts to push the Central African country towards meaningful development, stability, and safety. Thus, as argued above, Biya seems unfit and unable to provide the Cameroonian population with its prevalent desire for sociopolitical prosperity – instead, if he were to win the upcoming election, protests could arise, potentially spiraling into chaos and internal unrest, pushing the country to the brink of collapse. Hence, Cameroonian civil society must collectively organize not only on election day but beforehand, as well, signaling its lingering demand for sustainable change. The power of the people is not to be underestimated – and in the case of Cameroon we shall see if it is enough to tackle the 42-year long rule of Paul Biya.