INSTITUTIONS THE SENATORS TAKE THEIR SEATS

Fulfilling a pledge the president made in 2012, the upper chamber becomes a reality in May.

On 14 April the first Senate elections took place, 17 years after the Constitution called for them. Municipal council members chose 70 of its 100 members (seven in each of the 10 regions) and the president appointed the rest (three per region).

The radical opposition led by the Social Democracy Front (SDF), headed by Englishspeaker Ni John Fru Ndi, won 14 seats in two regions even though it had threatened to boycott the vote. “In the current state of our institutions, marked by the lack of a Senate and a Constitutional Council,” says Jean Robert Wafo, information minister in the SDF’s shadow cabinet, explaining why the leading opposition movement will take part in the election, “the vacuum in the event of a vacancy at the summit of the State can only benefit the ruling oligarchy, which has important material means to regenerate itself by force.”

The Senate is not mere windowdressing but acts as a check on the executive’s power and, meeting in Congress with the National Assembly, receives the oaths of the Constitutional Council’s members. Above all, its president, or its vice-president if the former becomes incapacitated, serves as interim head of State until the next election if the chief executive dies in office or resigns or if the Constitutional Council determines that he is unable to discharge his duties. In the meantime, he manages the transition.

In a country where the president celebrated his 80th birthday in February, the birth of such an institution, which he promised in late 2012 and was responsible for bringing into being, is not a detail. The nonviolent transition reassures public opinion, and politicians appreciate the reshuffling of Cameroon’s political landscape. Until now, National Assembly President Cavaye Yéguié Djibril, from the North, was the State’s secondhighest-ranking figure after President Biya, who is from the South. But what about tomorrow?

By Emmanuelle PONTIÉ