Coping with end-time signals
Paul Biya deserves praise for keeping Cameroon together in
peace so far. But no one can be sure of peace anymore in the next few years of
the end of the Biya-era. The absence of rules of succession within the CPDM
will almost for sure push powerful ambitious bureaucrats to acts of
disaffection and sabotage to gain ascendancy. Biya’s treatment of this powerful
class of ministers and GMs has only prepared them to pounce on him as soon as
the opportunity comes. The only way out for Biya to save his head and that of
his young and beautiful family is to renounce his own ambition to continue
after 2018, and allow free and fair elections within the CPDM on the one hand
and at national level on the other hand.
Peace is the one thing that Cameroonians, divided as they
are, easily concede to the Biya-regime. It is still a miracle that Cameroon
escaped a civil war, given the desperate opposition confrontations with the
government in the early 1990s and Cameroon’s history of acrimonious elections.
But
that peace can no more be guaranteed with the approach of the end-years of the
regime, ie up to 2018. The problem is succession. Paul Biya is working on two possibilities
neither of which is welcome particularly by the powerful bureaucrats who
constitute the pillars of his regime.
The
President longs to stay in power in defiance of his age and longevity in
office. The second scenario is to impose a hand-picked successor from the
ruling CPDM and ram him down the throats of Cameroonians at the presidential
election of 2018. Either possibility promises trouble for Biya, real big
trouble indeed. The opposition and the international community are opposed to
his continuing in office with the manipulation of the constitution.
Potent
as the international community is in halting the President, it is within the
regime itself that Biya will have some of the most unpleasant surprises,
betrayals and back-stabbing.
Powerful bureaucrats
The
class of powerful bureaucrats that control both the ruling party and the
government will most probably prove to be Biya’s greatest nightmare!
The
second force that the president must reckon with is the wide-spread dissidence
within the rank and file of the CPDM. It is this group whose outright
abstention from successive elections the President should be wary about. They
are waiting for him at the turning.
Three
factors make the powerful CPDM bureaucrats potentially deadly to the president.
First, there are no rules of succession within the party allowing for a free
and fair contest by which a democratically chosen candidate would emerge as the
party’s flag-bearer in the 2018 election. This absence opens the way for all
forms of intrigues and sabotage against the regime by interest groups to gain
ascendancy over other competing groups.
Second,
the relationship between Biya and his aides and subordinates is not always
wholesome or self-respecting as with partners functioning at different levels.
The president is often high-handed and too much of a chief who sometimes enjoys
subservience from collaborators.
Biya
keeps a good distance, partly due to his refusal to receive public officials.
His rather punitive and unpredictable use of his appointive powers and other
aspects of his style combine to create fear for him rather than encourage trust
and loyalty by his collaborators.
The
danger of this pattern of relationship between the Head of State and his
subordinates is never apparent until perhaps when there comes a crisis. The
chief then suddenly realizes that he stands alone, with collaborators whose
loyalty he could swear by having defected.
Feeling of betrayal
Former
Zambian President Frederick Chiluba suddenly realized that he was all alone
when he tried to manoeuvre for a third term against the provision of the
constitution. In his feeling of betrayal and loneliness, he reached out for
Levy Mwanawasa, a former colleague whom he had long fallen out with and
relegated, to succeed him. That choice has since proved fateful for him.
When
the 28-year regime of the Duvalier family (Papa and Bebe Doc) in Haiti
collapsed in February 1986, long time pillars of the regime disavowed it with
the utmost vehemence. Many swore that they had not had anything as such with
the regime!
The
same was the case with the Caucesceau regime in Romania in December 1989 as
soon as its end was in sight. Needless to recall the lonely and violent end of
President Caucesceau and his wife.
In
balance and for the records, it was surprising how the Iraqi regime of Saddam
Hussein hung together unto captivity and death.
The
third and clearly obvious way in which Biya has turned big powerful people who
should be his faithful allies into enemies is the very antagonistic manner in
which he is handling the corruption issue.
The
treatment of the one, they say, serves notice to the ninety-nine remaining!
These men are all friends and partners of the president in the enterprise of
the regime. The drama of all that humiliating arrests, detention, long court
trials and imprisonment is politically very prejudicial to Biya’s true
interests, to say the least. Why didn’t someone tell him that?
Public Money
What
the president should have focused on is coaxing individuals to turn in public
money stashed away in foreign back accounts. American and French ambassadors
offered the help of their governments for this. This could be achieved without
making enemies of these men.
The idea
is not so much that people must not be punished but that the issue, explosive
as it is, could have been handled with a lot more political tact. Recovering
public money should have been at the centre of Biya’s anti-corruption strategy,
not theatre and humiliation.
Biya
has the knack of sleeping over problems. It is no wonder that he didn’t give
enough thought to this matter! He now has himself to blame. The damage is done!
Filthy rich men
These
men are filthy rich, if some of the cash values carried by the press can be
trusted. Add to all the foregoing reasons, the ambition of these men to access
the commanding heights of power. And why not?
Problem
is that in the absence of rules to govern individual aspirations anything can
be expected and should be expected. This is not good for peace and security.
Other countries went to war over minor matters. It is unsafe to always think
that we will always escape it.
What
Biya must accept is that all this is the house and regime which he has
painstakingly built over 33 years. It does not stand as well as it could. A
collapse could be catastrophic.
There
is absolutely no question that he could suddenly start undoing things to
correct the edifice at this vary late hour. What he can still do is to adopt
courses of action to avoid the very worst of consequences.
The
first productive step on that road is for the president to consider and accept
that 2018 is goodbye to politics. The alternative is better imagined than
described here. Biya has a young wife and still very young children that must
come into consideration when thinking about his future.
Free and fair elections
The
next important step is to completely free the electoral system at both the
national level and within the CPDM so as to allow the peoples’ free choice to
emerge at both levels.
Free
and fair elections in 2018 will be a great legacy he would bequeath to
Cameroonians who will in turn more easily forgive him for his many
shortcomings.
And if
for nothing else let him do this to save his head and that of his very young
and beautiful family.
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