Old rivals likely to face each other in presidential election

The government of Cameroon has announced that presidential elections will be held on 11 October. Veteran opposition leader John Fru Ndi appears likely to emerge as the strongest challenger to President Paul Biya, who has ruled this West African country for the past 22 years. Biya, 72, has not yet announced his intention to stand for a further seven-year term as the candidate of the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement CPDM). However, the long-serving head of state has given no indication that he plans to retire and he is widely expected to confirm his candidature before nominations close later this week. The CPDM has ruled Cameroon, which was formed from the union of former French and British colonies, since independence in 1960. During that time, the country, which produces cocoa, coffee, timber, cotton and some offshore oil, has known only two leaders; founding president Ahmadou Ahidjo and Biya, who succeeded him peacefully in 1982. However, there is now a very real threat of a split between conservatives and progressives within the ruling party, which is accused by critics, including the international corruption watchdog Transparency International, of presiding over one of the most corrupt governments in Africa. Mila Assouta, a virulent critic of Biya on the progressive wing of the party, announced last month that he planned to run for the presidency on a CPDM ticket. The government announced the long-awaited date for presidential elections in a statement on radio and television on Saturday. Fru Ndi was chosen as the presidential candidate of his Social Democratic Front (SDF) party at a party congress in its stronghold of Bamenda, in the English-speaking area of southwestern Cameroon, 24 hours later. The SDF is Cameroon's largest opposition party. It won 21 of the 180 seats in parliament at the last legislative elections in 2002. The ruling CPDM won 133. Fru Ndi, who is now 63, emerged as a strong challenger to Biya at Cameroon's first multi-party election in 1992 after founding the SDF two years earlier, when Cameroon was still a one-party state. The opposition leader was officially awarded 35.9 percent of the vote to Biya's 39.9 percent, but claimed that he was cheated of victory by government vote-rigging. Fru Ndi, who belongs to the minority Anglophone community that accounts for 20 percent of Cameroon's 16 million population, boycotted the next presidential election in 1997. He alleged that the poll would not be free and fair. Official results showed that Biya won the election against a sprinkling of minor opposition candidates with a majority of 92.6 percent. The opposition has voiced doubts that this year's presidential election will be any cleaner, despite Britain and Japan's recent gift to the government of 25,000 transparent ballot boxes. Doubts have focussed particularly on the electoral roll, which includes only half those potentially qualified to vote in the elections, and the independence of Cameroon's electoral commission. The registration of new voters came to an end with the announcement of the presidential elections at the weekend. The government has not yet said how many people have been included on the list, which the opposition wants published on the internet. But last June, the Interior Ministry said only 3.8 million of Cameroon's estimated eight million adults had been registered. If the poll is free and fair, Fru Ndi's chances of defeating the ruling party candidate may well depend on whether the main alliance of opposition parties can unite behind a single candidate. Fru Ndi told the BBC in an interview on Monday that he expected the 10-party Coalition for National Reconciliation and Reconstruction to agree on a single presidential candidate by Wednesday. Although Fru Ndi is the best known opposition leader in Cameroon, he does not command universal support from those who would like to see a change of regime. He was challenged for the presidential nomination by two rivals within his party, but beat them easily when it came to a vote by delegates at the SDF's weekend congress in Bamenda.