Cameroon opposition party wants security beefed up for Feb. 2020 polls

Cameroon’s opposition party, the Social Democratic Front has agreed to participate in the February 2020 legislative and municipal elections only if the government put in place favourable security measures.

The elections had been postponed twice due to growing threats from armed separatists in the country’s two English-speaking regions.

A secessionist struggle has been raging in the two regions since October 2016. Separatists have vowed to disrupt the elections in the Anglophone regions.

But Cameroon’s Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji had earlier told reporters that “necessary security measures” would be taken to ensure peaceful elections.

The 2018 presidential election stoked a political crisis in this Central African nation, where President Paul Biya has ruled for 37 years.

Opposition leader Maurice Kamto was imprisoned along with some of his supporters for denouncing electoral fraud through marches.