By Atia Tilarious Azohnwi
The Social Democratic Front (SDF) party may be in its darkest moments yet – they have never gone this low since the opposition party was launched on May 26, 1990.
In a badly bruising outing, the SDF emerged fourth from the October 7, 2018 presidential election in Cameroon. Incumbent Paul Biya secured 71.28% of votes cast, while his closest challenger, Maurice Kamto garnered 14.23% of the votes cast. The SDF party and its candidate, Joshua Osih finished on a disappointing fourth position with 3.35% of votes cast, behind greenhorn Cabral Libii who got 6.28% of validly cast ballots.
Ni John Fru Ndi founded the SDF in 1990.He was elected as the SDF’s National Chairman at its 1st Ordinary National Convention, held in Bamenda in May 1992. During the October 1992 presidential election, he made a strong showing against President Paul Biya, losing with 36% of the vote against Biya’s 40% according to official results (in Fru Ndi’s stronghold, North West, he officially won 86.3%).
This election was condemned as fraudulent by the opposition and Fru Ndi and third place opposition candidate Maigari Bello Bouba unsuccessfully sought for the election to be annulled by the Supreme Court.
The SDF thus positioned herself as Cameroon’s leading opposition party. But after well over 26 years, the end seems to have caught up with the party.
The SDF candidate in the October 2004 presidential election; according to official results, took second place with 17.40% of the vote against 70.92% for Biya. The party received her best results in the North West (68.16%), followed by the West (45.04%), Littoral (32.71%), and South West (30.59%).
Fru Ndi alleged fraud in the July 2007 parliamentary election and called for it to be annulled; in the election, the SDF won the second highest number of seats but was far behind the ruling RDPC, which won an overwhelming majority of seats. After the election, Fru Ndi said that Biya should recognize him as the official leader of the opposition.
Fru Ndi indicated that he believed the 2008 changes to the Constitution were intended to enable President Biya to be lifelong dictator of Cameroon and that the changes would institutionalize corruption, immunity, and inertia. Fru Ndi again stood unsuccessfully as a candidate in the October 2011 presidential election, placing a distant second behind Biya who got 77.99%. The SDF only emerged with 10.71% of the votes.
The Anglo-Bami factor
Many have been giving possible reasons for this catastrophic defeat, even though many agree that voter turnout was marked by apathy, and in some regions, outright fear, with credible sources saying that less than one percent of voters cast ballots in some areas. In the country’s English-speaking regions, harsh crackdowns on an emerging secessionist movement kept many polling stations closed and left others mostly attended by soldiers.
Aside the Anglophone crisis, the SDF could not find favour in the sight of her Bamileke supporters given that one of their – Maurice Kamto was in the race. The Bamileke preferred to back theirs, breaking the Anglo-Bami bond that kept the SDF afloat.
A pact with Yaounde gone sour?
An SDF diehard tells The SUN on grounds of anonymity that the party has lost touch with its base. “The party has abandoned the grassroots. It is no longer power to the people as they preached in the early days. It is now power to some people.”
He claims that he party has been romancing with the system behind the scenes so as to maintain the position of second in command.
“The party is Anglophone inclined even though a national party. It has not been able to articulate and protect the Anglophones from the whims and caprices of the Yaoundé government. They prefer to go to parliament, form a group and enrich themselves while the masses are there living on hopes while they pretend to oppose Biya. They have deviated from the good values on which the party was formed,” he says.
He fears that the SDF may no longer provide hope to the downtrodden Cameroonian. “…Because of all these most people do not see a future in the party. The party has shown that it can no longer take power. It was the last hope for Anglophones but many have seen that it is now a business making project. That is why most sympathizers and militants of the party mostly Anglophones have had to seek for change elsewhere.”
This SDF militant says, “Adventurers have infiltrated the party… the SDF candidate for the presidential election was another problem. Hon. Joshua Osih did no major work at the grassroots. He was more of an elitist politician forgetting that the SDF is a grassroots party. He didn’t have the necessary charisma and abilities akin to Chairman Fru Ndi. And he even singlehandedly ran his campaign without the chairman or the party.”
Ndenge Godden Zama, SDF Limbe I Electoral District Chairman says the elections were a farce, refusing to accept the official outcome of the polls.
Elections were a farce
Zama insists that, “The results were a forgery! Everyone knows that. I don’t think anyone would dismiss the forgery of Mr Biya’s 71.28% and accept the results of Hon. Osih or Prof. Kamto. Those results don’t reflect the aspirations of the Cameroon people.”
Teacher, dramatist and actor, Julius Mfone Nde Zama says the SDF lacked insight. “They forgot that they were the party to empower the people. The people gave them power but they refused to listen to the people. Their parliamentarians should have boycotted the parliament long ago like Hon. Joseph Wirba did. From a reliable source at the United Nations, if all Anglophone parliamentarians returned home, it would have attracted foreign sympathy. Wirba said it but they rejected him. We would have gained a better hearing on the world stage had they represented our feelings. They didn’t. They realised their error and tried to correct it by drumming on the Anglophone problem in front of a Constitutional Council which was not listening at all. It was too late. They knew the truth but refused to accept it. The people who knew better left them to chase their fruitless people-less dreams. That is why they failed.”
Isaiah Mboro, Secretary of the Muyuka Electoral District of the SDF says “the defeat was not disgraceful, because going into an election that involves Biya is already a defeat.”
Mboro believes that the SDF went to the polls with its stronghold greatly weakened. “The fact that elections never took place in the two Anglophone regions, where the SDF candidate comes from. The Bamilekes, who make up the bulk of SDF members in the francophone zone, decided to vote for their tribes man (Kamto).
“The third reason I can advance is that of voter apathy. So many SDF supporters did not vote because they were tired of the system, and did not expect anything different from the past. Also, so many were disgruntled that SDF forced itself into an election, when there was war in the English speaking regions.”
It is also mooted in some quarters that candidate Osih was abandoned to himself by the top shot of the party because he found favour in the eyes of Chairman Fru Ndi. Some are said to have only met the minimum of financial contribution. But news that Osih did not have enough financial support from the SDF remains worrying. What has been happening to contributions made to the party by mayors, members of parliament and senators?
Osih looks forward to imminent elections
Osih says they now have to work as a political party to see what went wrong and prepare for subsequent political consultations. “From the results on our tally sheets, we were not first. We cannot be fighting to be second. We had a special task force to have elections hold in the North West and South West regions but we failed. We had to write-off the North West and South West Region.”
On allegations that he was abandoned by some influential persons in the party, Osih said he took the decision not to further put the life of these officials and their families in jeopardy.
“Unfortunately, those who turned up to our rallies were not registered. Over 90% of those supporting you on social media are not registered. There is a fundamental problem we have to understand and address,” Osih says.
“I had a sincere hope that we will have a better result. I work day and night. But we must have the humility to accept defeat. We accepted the rules of the game before running. It is only by taking note that the process has stopped that we can reconstruct ourselves. We need to acknowledge that we did not win this election. I take cognisance of the results proclaimed by the constitutional council but let’s move on.
“The election should not hold back the chance for peace. I will try to see how peace can return to the North West and South West Regions. I have the capacity to help usher in peace…we have to bring about peace and then solve the problem.
“I am making myself available to mediate in the crisis, just like the SDF is. Bullets should stop renting the air. Troops should return to the barracks and life should return to normal.”