It is no longer news that Maurice Kamto has been “pre-defeated” by the Rassemblement Democratic du Peuple Camerounais, RDPC machine. While he has been disqualified from running, he can genuinely feel relieved at not having to be one of the validators once more, given that the “consensual reform” has not come to pass in the last seven years. Ambazonia News explores a range of the options, the silver linings that this dark cloud comes with for both Kamto and the MRC.
A step back to the lucky circumstances that allowed the RDPC to win this round sees its roots, and the RDPC’s mixed blessing in “Movement pour la Renaissance du Cameroun”, MRC deciding to boycott previous “electoral farces”, thereby handing the RDPC this “solution” this time around.
So was MRC right then or now?
The MRC was right to campaign for a fairer electoral system and, even more to applaud, for putting their money where their mouth was in refusing to play validators. It was a very good sign to show a demarcation between MRC and the other comic characters who call themselves the opposition and deliberately validate a biased “electoral system” at every opportunity for a few CFA.
Where the MRC failed was in effectively galvanising the electorate and the gourvenants’ mutuality to bring about the “consensual reform” of the electoral system they [MRC] had rightly invested so much to achieve. Even the pre-defeat of Maurice Kamto should also be to MRC’s credit for risking it to achieve reform. Kamto is now in a good position to publish a white paper on the reforms of the electoral system from a relatively neutral position as he cannot be seen as calling for a system to help him win.
He is also in a similarly advantageous position to coordinate a collaboration among the genuine opposition for the same reason that he can be seen as impartial and actually be impartial, not having to contend with the awkwardness of throwing his hat in the ring as the potential single torch bearer.
His [Kamto’s] disqualification could well not be the coup that the RDPC think if MRC follow up with the courage of their conviction in marshalling the opposition from an inevitably self-less – and therefore “patriotic” position. They could call themselves selfless fighters for the republic in this term.
The electorate of LRC needs to get used to the idea that someone can have the long fight rather than the usual ruses where hundreds turn up with fanfare only to fold to the RDPC in exchange for “their share” even while lamely blaming the obviously biased and flawed system. The electorate need to see the courage in having actually kept sincere rather than place-hold and validate just to have the chance to field their candidate.
For the MRC, this cloud has a silver lining.
If the MRC takes this opportunity they can go further by also seriously thinking about the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle. Without the burden of having to convince the electorate in La République du Cameroun, they can put some real effort into understanding the whole root causes, legal positions and the inevitable need to resort to negotiations to settle the conflict. There is no urgency and therefore it is no longer a politic to promise “to visit” with the implied same-flawed implication of granting an internal solution to a wholly legally separate state. They must be prepared to think the previously unthinkable, including what may have been, unmentionable grey-sky thinking had they been contending for the La République du Cameroun, presidency.
So MRC, if you pursue your brave stances, go and talk to Ambazonians and find out how to resolve the Liberation Struggle in a mutual way. It will help you when you come back to be able to make a substantial contribution to bring a just peace and stability to this Gulf of Guinea.
First hint for a starting point: while La République du Cameroun is called La République du Cameroun, MRC needs to come to terms and bring the understanding to les gourvenants of LRC that that means Ambazonia is outside their legal borders. MRC is also in a relatively better position intellectually to grasp the idea that the name change in 1984 was a one-way irreversible move for les gourvenants, which after its signing and announcement, immediately removed any further ability LRC governments to meddle in Ambazonia’s socio-political development and evolution, thereafter.
MRC needs to use this unexpected opportunity wisely to bring and clarify the mutuality that could see both states co-exist in a more constructive neighbourly mode.
Ambazonia News Briefs 