Paul Biya Is Offering Cameroon’s Anglophones Too Little, Too Late

A mother and child walk past a destroyed car in a small town on the main highway near Buea on May 11, 2019. The location is one of many residential areas that now sit empty as residents flee to the main city of Buea or into the deep tropical forests after violence in the region. Giles Clarke/UNOCHA via Getty Images

On Sept. 7, Cameroonian President Paul Biya signed a decree authorizing the country’s first election for members of the Regional Councils in each of the country’s 10 regions.

In describing the preparations for the vote, Essousse Erik, the director-general of Elecam, the government-controlled electoral commission, said: “The elections would be a historic moment and a turning point in our democracy.” In fact, the announcement that the government plans to hold elections for the Regional Councils comes over two decades after it first declared its intent to do so in 1996 as part of a broader decentralization plan that would allow for significant autonomy in how Cameroon’s diverse population would be governed. Unfortunately, it is too little, too late.