ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on parties and their popular manifestations, then on institutional and electoral matters through 1992. The Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement persevered despite impatience and intolerance, and its struggle will prevail against the manifold crisis at this mid-1990s juncture. The “big five” independents were banned at a crucial period late in 1991 before the regime called for the “Tripartite” conference on the political crisis, helping it forestall opposition demands for its choice of forum, a Sovereign National Conference. Migration patterns created a diverse population in its civil service, petty commerce, and labor ranks, rendered potentially volatile as the economic crisis cut employment and services among salary and wage earners as well as those chronically worse off. Responses to Paul Biya varied according to local political views of the crisis and its dynamic. The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs report concluded that the election would continue to block rather than resolve Cameroon’s crisis of governance.
