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Cameroon Candidates Resign Amid Separatist Threats, Attacks

Moki Edwin Kindzeka

   YAOUNDE, CAMEROON - Several dozen English-speaking candidates in
   Cameroon's Feb. 9, 2020 local council and parliamentary elections have
   resigned amid separatist threats and attacks on them and their
   property. Houses belonging to some of the candidates have been razed
   and the whereabouts of others are unknown.

   Dozens of people visited the Yaounde residence of Joseph Mbah Ndam,
   vice president of Cameroon's National Assembly, the lower house of its
   Parliament to offer condolences after his house was destroyed by
   separatist fighters this week.

   Among the visitors was 21-year-old businessman Elvis Mbuh, who said he
   witnessed the incident and fled to Yaounde because he and the
   lawmaker's relatives were threatened by separatist fighters.

   "They were just shooting in the air," Mbuh said. "They told us that
   anybody who did not respect what they said would be killed. Then they
   asked us, 'Where is Mbah Ndam? Where is Mbah Ndam?' We saw fire
   everywhere and they told us that they would come back if we go to
   vote."

   Shortly after Ndam's residence was burned, Batibo Mayor Tanjoh Fredrick
   Tetuh decided not to run for re-election, saying the security situation
   there, the killings and abductions, did not permit him to run.

   Separatist fighters have said on social media that they will not allow
   the elections to take place in the English-speaking regions they call
   their territory. The separatists claimed responsibility for the
   abduction of at least 40 candidates for Parliament and local councils
   who defied their demands to resign. The whereabouts of some of the
   abducted candidates is still unknown.

   The separatists admitted that they torched at least six houses of
   candidates who escaped to the French-speaking regions for safety and
   refused to resign. One such house, they said, belonged to Donatus
   Njong, mayor of the English-speaking town of Kumbo. Njong did not bow
   to separatist pressure to resign and escaped from Kumbo to the
   French-speaking region.

   Amid the tensions and threats, the opposition Social Democratic Front
   and the ruling Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement of President Paul
   Biya announced that at least 27 candidates for the elections have
   resigned.

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