The sixth deputy mayor of Douala 5th announced this morning his commitment to join the party of Issa Tchiroma Bakary, the leader he has supported since the end of the 2025 presidential election.
Joseph Espoir Biyong, after turning the page on the Cameroonian Party for National Reconciliation (PCRN), the political party under whose banner he was elected deputy mayor of Douala 5th, is also leaving the Cameroonian Democrats Party. He had joined the FDC after the announcement of his resignation from the PCRN, made public in 2021. This February 3, 2026, the mayor releases the news that his previous publications had already announced. “I am delighted to announce that I have decided to join the Front for the National Salvation of Cameroon (FSNC) as a militant,” declares the politician without insisting on the reasons for his departure or the reasons for his new commitment.
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The news presupposes that Joseph Espoir Biyong has definitively left the Cameroonian Democrats party and is joining the movement for change led by Issa Tchiroma Bakary, a candidate who claims victory in the October 2025 presidential election. The surprise is not so great for informed observers and analysts of the national political scene. Since the last presidential election in Cameroon, Joseph Espoir Biyong has expressed unwavering support for the leader of the FSNC. He defended Tchiroma’s victory tooth and nail in the mainstream and social media, to the point of being summoned to the prefecture of Bonanjo in Douala for his excessive zeal in favor of the former minister.
Without clearly announcing his withdrawal from his former party, the politician had already shown in recent months his alignment behind the national president of the FSNC, who is in exile in Gambia. Last January, during a media appearance, he announced his withdrawal from the legislative and municipal elections that the country is preparing to organize. This is in accordance with the decision of Issa Tchiroma, who gave the order to his party, the FSNC, to boycott these elections as a sign of protest and resistance against the “confiscation of power” by a regime that, according to him, lost the presidential election. The deputy mayor, who recently declared that he no longer had a life, places his hopes in the new party to which he is joining.
However, by joining the FSNC, which is boycotting the elections, Joseph Espoir Biyong displays a certain inconsistency. He was among those who criticized the president of the MRC, Prof. Maurice Kamto, for deciding to boycott the legislative and municipal elections of February 9, 2020. This blocked the path for several party executives who intended to run in said elections. Today, he aligns himself behind another leader who makes the same decision. This evolution clearly shows that in politics, leaders can revise their convictions over time.
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