Constitutional Council President Denies Endorsing Biya for 2025 Elections

The President of Cameroon’s Constitutional Council, Justice Clement Atangana, has denied participating in a political party meeting where attendees endorsed President Paul Biya as candidate for the 2025 presidential elections.

In a letter addressed to Equinox Television that first aired the news, he expressed displeasure and said media reports attributing him to such a political meeting are ‘false’.

He however admitted attending in an elite meeting that had no political coloration.

He reacted shortly after the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) opposition party filed a lawsuit against him and two other members for violating the law by engaging in activities that compromise their impartiality as members of the Constitutional Council.

“Following erroneous statements confounded with false allegations, I come not without regret to express my displeasure while asking you to publish in all your media outlets the information whose content follows as right of reply,” Justice Clement Atangana said in a letter to Equinox Tv.

The allegations, according to the Constitutional Council President, were made on a political talk show, “Droit de Reponse,” on Equinox Tv on Sunday, November 3, 2024 and hosted by Duval Fangwa.

“Your journalist deliberately allowed the broadcast of false information through certain panelists, with the ulterior motive of wanting to mislead national and international opinion, inevitably tarnishing my image not without calling into question my sense of discernment, professionalism, impartiality and all my long experience acquired in my capacity as a magistrate of first degree,” he stated.

Attended Meeting as Elite

Distancing himself from the motion of support sent to President Paul Biya urging him to be a presidential candidate, he said he attended the meeting as an elite.

“For the record, I am from Ekoumeyeck village in Ngomedzap Subdivision of Nyong and So’o Division, Centre Region. For those who are not aware, I am a patriarch, a spokesperson of the population of Ngomedzap, an elite of Nyong and So’o, active member of the Council of Elders and former president of Association for the Economic, Social and Cultural Development of Nyong and So’o (ADENSO),” said Justice Clement Atangana.

He added, “You might as well understand that I did not come from an insert substance. As such I have family imperatives and I must, like any other person, attend and contribute when circumstances permit me to work focused on the economic, social and cultural development of our division.”

Denying sending a motion of support to president Paul Biya, Justice Clement Atangana said he withdrew from the elite meeting immediately after the opening ceremony.

ADENSO Admits Sending Motion of Support to Biya

In a public statement, the Association for the Economic, Social and Cultural Development of Nyong and So’o (ADENSO) said the group is apolitical.

It, however, admitted sending motion of support to President Paul Biya but dismissed reports that Justice Clement Atangana took part in the drafting though he attended the meeting.

“Indeed, Mr. President Clément Atangana was certainly present, as an elite of the division, in order to mark his fraternal enthusiasm, during the protocol ceremony of the opening of the General Assembly, but he immediately and definitively withdrew as soon as the work was suspended so that neither during the work in committee, nor during the plenary session for the adoption of resolutions and closing, was he no longer present,” ADENSO said in a statement obtained by MMI.

The group emphasized that, “The President of the Constitutional Council therefore did not participate in the drafting or signing of a motion of support for the Head of State, which took place towards the end of the General Assembly.”

Constitutional Council President Sued

On November 6, 2024, lawyers representing the Cameroon Renaissance Movement party filed a case at the Yaoundé Court of First Instance against Justice Atangana and two other members of the Constitutional Council—Emmanuel Bonde and Adolphe Minkoa She.

The CRM sued them for criminal acts, including encroachment on legislative power and collectively violating the law on their status as members of the constitutional Council.

The case centers on their closeness and alleged militancy in the ruling CPDM political party.

The party argued that this jeopardizes their impartiality as members of the country’s Constitutional Council.