The real problem for the opposition is Biya -Mamadou Mota responds to Jeune Afrique

Following a controversial editorial in Jeune Afrique aired on RFI radio, the interim president of the MRC, Mamadou Mota, has stepped up to defend the Cameroonian opposition. He denounces a closed political game and blames the Paul Biya regime for the stalemate.

The editorial published by Jeune Afrique, titled provocatively— "Is the Cameroonian opposition the stupidest in Africa?" —provoked a strong reaction. François Soudan, the newspaper's editorial director, criticised the opposition's strategic choices, including Maurice Kamto 's decision to leave the MRC to run under the Manidem banner.

A gamble that resulted in his ouster from the presidential race, scheduled for Sunday, October 12, 2025.

In response, Mamadou Mota, interim president of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM), strongly denounced Jeune Afrique 's analysis . He believes it is reductive to blame the opposition for its electoral failure. " The real problem for the Cameroonian opposition is Biya, "he declared.

He accuses the current regime of systemic electoral bias: " Biya has sabotaged the simplest elements of our country's democratisation."

The interim president of the MRC admits that uniting the opposition could strengthen its political clout, but questions the sincerity of some parties: " How many parties are truly opposition parties? Many are creations of the regime to animate the political facade," he said.

He also mentions the instrumentalisation of institutions to prevent any change of government, explaining that whatever strategy was adopted, Maurice Kamto would have been sidelined by the government.

He also rejects the notion of "national lethargy" used in the editorial to describe Cameroonians' reaction to Kamto's ouster.

For Mota, fear and repression paralyze civil society: "The people want change, but faced with this security machine, people choose the instinct of survival. This silence is not indifference, it is a graveyard silence imposed by fear, "he insisted.

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BY A CORRESPONDENT

Interim president of the MRC, Mamadou Mota