MRC Calls for Declaration of Vacancy at the Presidency, Says Cameroon Has Become a Kingdom

The newly elected president of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC), Tiriane Balbine Nadège Noah, has called for the declaration of a vacancy of power at the Presidency of the Republic.

In a statement issued October 28, her first major political declaration since being elected on October 17, she described Cameroon as a “volcano in eruption” and a “kingdom” rather than a democracy, following the April 14, 2026 constitutional amendment.

She outlined a three-point roadmap for ending what she called a “triple economic, social and political crisis”.

The MRC statement sharply criticizes the constitutional revision promulgated on April 14, which reintroduced the position of vice-president appointed by the head of state, replacing the previous system where the Senate president assumed interim power in case of a vacancy. The MRC describes this as a “constitutional coup” that organizes succession without election and bypasses universal suffrage.

“Since the coup of April 14, 2026, Cameroon has gone from being a Republic to a Kingdom,” the statement reads. The party argues the reform violates Article 64 of the January 18, 1996 Constitution and has turned the country into “a moral ruin and, consequently, a veritable volcano.”

Call for Vacancy, Interim, and New Electoral Code

Noah’s statement demands three actions: the competent authorities declare a vacancy of power at the Presidency in accordance with the 1996 Constitution; the Senate president assume interim presidency for a period of 40 to 120 days; and during that interim, a consensual Electoral Code be adopted before organizing a new presidential election.

The MRC also calls on the African Union, the United Nations, the European Union, and Cameroon’s historical partner countries to support its proposal to prevent what it describes as a “widespread civil war unfolding before our eyes.”

The statement points to a 74.4 percent drop in public investment spending in 2026, which it says suggests state coffers are nearly empty.

It also references social unrest stemming from the exclusion of MRC founder Maurice Kamto from the October 2025 presidential election and the post-election violence that followed, which the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has documented as involving excessive force and arbitrary arrests.

The MRC also demands that the electorate be convened within the legal timeframe for legislative and municipal elections, whose mandates have been extended to December 20, 2026 and February 2027 respectively, with no date yet set for the polls.