By Dr. Peter N. Mbile
The verdict and the moment
The results are now known.
The 2025 presidential election is over.
The incumbent has been declared winner with just above fifty-three percent of the vote.
Across the country, reactions vary: some express relief, others resignation; some validation, others quiet disbelief.
Yet beyond the mathematics lies a more profound reckoning of what this election means for Cameroon’s democratic journey.
The result confirms what many expected. Predictable high-pressure areas delivered strong results for the opposition, while the overall arithmetic favored continuity.
Ironically, the margin of victory may have come from the two Anglophone regions still affected by crisis.
Here, uncertainty shaped both participation and perception.
Fear, displacement, and limited campaigning blurred the line between choice and circumstance, leaving observers unsure how fully the results reflect genuine consent.
This ambiguity, while not altering legality, complicates legitimacy.
The distance between the Elite and other citizens
For months, the political and intellectual elite were absorbed in calculations and coalitions.
Hotel lobbies and private lounges buzzed with speculation on possible alliances and electoral equations.
Yet when the people quietly cast their votes, they rendered those calculations irrelevant.
In many ways, the electorate acted with greater wisdom than its self-proclaimed leaders.
Citizens voted for proximity and presence.
The quiet emergence of a surprise opposition candidate as a moral alternative to spectacle was itself a lesson: that democracy, when left to the people, often chooses modesty.
While the process highlighted a persistent disconnect between those who theorize democracy and those who live it, the outcome was more predictable.
The citizen’s fatigue with elite gamesmanship had also become visible.
The process was a significant assertion of ownership over a process too long monopolized by political class narratives.
The meaning behind the numbers
Beyond who won and who lost, the 2025 cycle carries a rare national tone.
The results, however one interprets them, suggest a modest but visible movement toward national cohesion.
Regions long defined by sectarian loyalty now show a more mixed pattern of political expression.
Fatigue with division has given rise to a new pragmatism: an acknowledgment that the nation’s challenges require more than regional arithmetic.
This subtle change is an achievement in itself.
It signals the possibility of a civic identity broader than tribe, language, or region.
Yet, the lingering uncertainties, especially in conflict-affected zones, remind us that numbers alone cannot fully capture the democratic soul.
Winners of the democratic spirit
In this broader moral sense, the true winners are not only those who will govern, but those who kept faith in the process.
The ordinary voter who stood in line despite doubts; the young citizen who verified information before sharing; the journalist who reported with restraint and courage, all these have strengthened the civic foundation of democracy.
Their persistence transforms disillusionment into dignity.
They remind us that democracy is sustained not by the spectacle of elections, but by the daily acts of honesty, participation, and mutual respect that follow them.
Losers of the democratic imagination
Among the losers are those who continue to equate democracy with the ballot box alone.
When politics becomes merely a contest for office rather than a culture of service, elections turn into rituals of inevitability.
The political and intellectual elite, still trapped in tactical thinking, lose credibility precisely because the people act with greater realism than their theories.
Justice, too, suffers when legality outweighs legitimacy and convenience replaces conscience.
The 2025 cycle therefore challenges us to rebuild not only institutions but the moral imagination of governance itself.
Beyond the ballot
The election has ended, but the democratic process must continue.
Cameroon does not face a crisis of existence, but of confidence.
Its institutions remain standing, yet public faith in them is fragile.
Democracy must be understood as a road, not a race.
If the road is cracked by mistrust or narrowed by exclusion, no driver, however skilled, can steer the nation safely forward.
Repairing that road requires fairness, inclusion, and humility from those who govern, and patience from those who are governed.
As the nation turns the page, the true winners will be those who transform numerical victory into moral responsibility.
The true losers will be those who confuse success at the polls with the work of rebuilding trust.
Cameroon’s 2025 election is now history, but the democratic journey it represents has only just begun.