Cameroon heading towards an early presidential election ?

Answering a question on his possible candidacy for president in 2018 during the visit of French President Francois Hollande in Cameroon, the Head of State Paul Biya declared that "the next presidential election is but in some distant".

According to the electoral calendar, the election of the new President of the Republic is expected in 2018. But for many observers, the elections could be held before the year indicated.

Some feel that Cameroon has no capacity to organize three elections the same year (legislative, municipal and presidential, planned for 2018), and in the presidential camp, they must find reasons for early presidential elections.

"If the President gets to the end of his current mandate, he will be 85 years. Asking for a new seven-year term from the people can be difficult to defend and support, especially as he would be 92 years of age and 43 years in power. But on the other hand, leaving power a year before the CAN 2019 for which he prepared with major projects already changing the face of the country, would be heart-breaking for him. This is his only CAN and he must still be there," warrants a source close to President Biya in The Daily Economy of Tuesday, November 17, 2015.

For the newspaper, this is the perfect scenario, "an anticipation of presidential elections in 2016, while Biya is still young to apply for a new mandate so that he can leave after CAN 2019, which he will inaugurate as another project he has committed to, and so on."

But to organize an early election in Cameroon, there should be a revision of the Constitution, because the Constitution of 18 January 1996, revised 14 April 2008 "did not include in the 69 articles, a case of anticipation a presidential election."

"If Paul Biya wanted to lift the static term limits in 2008, why wait till now to slash our Basic Law? Manipulation of the Constitution for the confiscation of power will weaken and pose a serious threat to the country's future," concludes the newspaper.