The race to Cameroon’s presidency has taken an unprecedented legal twist as opposition candidate and lawyer, Barrister Akere Tabeng Muna, has petitioned the Constitutional Council to disqualify President Paul Biya from standing in the October 12 election.
His case rests on the provisions of Article 118 of the Electoral Code, a rarely used clause which bars from eligibility any individual who has placed themselves, “by their own doing, in a situation of dependence or collusion with another person, organization, or foreign power.” The law also compels the Constitutional Council to decide on such petitions within three days of their submission.
In his filing, Muna argues that President Biya, now 92 and in power for over four decades, no longer exercises independent control over the office he occupies. He points to the president’s prolonged absences from public life, his reliance on intermediaries to announce his candidacy and even to submit his electoral documents, and the fact that internal party decisions such as his nomination have been handled in his absence. State institutions that require his presence, including the Supreme Council of the Magistracy, have not convened in years.
To Muna, these are signs not of mere political strategy but of a leader who has effectively ceded control, thereby falling foul of the electoral law.
The petition goes further by highlighting moments that, according to Muna, expose Biya’s physical and cognitive decline. Chief among them was the president’s performance at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in 2022, where he appeared visibly disoriented and dependent on aides for even the simplest decisions. Combined with his regular, extended medical stays in Switzerland and his almost total reliance on surrogates to issue instructions at home, Muna contends that Cameroon is effectively governed by proxy. In his words, this is no longer just a matter of age but “a violation of the independence required of anyone seeking to exercise sovereign power in Cameroon.”
The legal consequences of this case are potentially seismic. Should the Constitutional Council agree with Muna’s interpretation of Article 118 and declare Biya ineligible, the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) would be forced to scramble for a replacement candidate within three days, in accordance with Article 128 of the Code. Such a ruling would upend the political calculations of a party that has known no other standard bearer for nearly half a century. If, on the other hand, the Council rejects the petition, Biya will remain on the ballot for an eighth consecutive term, further entrenching the status quo.
Beyond the courtroom arguments lies a deeper political tension. For years, Cameroonians have grown accustomed to the phrase “on high instructions from the Head of State,” even when those instructions appear to be conveyed through unelected aides who operate behind the heavy gates of the presidential palace.
Critics argue that the republic has been reduced to a system of government by delegation, with the president’s physical absence or frailty masked by carefully choreographed appearances and the intervention of a small inner circle. Muna’s petition exposes this reality to judicial scrutiny for the first time, and places the Constitutional Council under immense pressure to demonstrate independence in a case that goes to the very heart of national sovereignty.
The decision, expected within days, will resonate far beyond the courtroom. For Biya, it is a question of preserving his place in the country’s political history. For Muna, it is a chance to test the strength of Cameroon’s legal framework against entrenched power. And for the Cameroonian people, it is a defining moment that will either confirm the durability of the status quo or open a new chapter in the nation’s democratic journey.
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