The 2002 legislative election in Cameroon: a retrospective on Cameroon's stalled democracy movement

Abstract

This paper examines the impressive victory by President Paul Biya and his ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) in the 2002 Cameroon legislative election, especially in the light of the near collapse of the regime and the party in 1992, when it almost lost its parliamentary majority. It argues that several factors contributed to this turn of events including the president's skilful use of his power of incumbency to forestall the democratic process, the ineffectiveness of the opposition parties, and the lack of sustained support for genuine democratic change in Cameroon by France and other Western industrialised nations.