A few months before the double 2027 elections, economist Serge Alain Godong delivers an uncompromising reading of the Cameroonian political showdown.
By invoking “game theory” and the “prisoner’s dilemma,” he explains why, in his view, Maurice Kamto could not win in 2018 and “would only be able to hardly win the next one.” In a dense text, he describes an “openly twilight” regime and an electorate that chooses the certainty of the known over the promise of the uncertain.
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“The openly twilight nature of the forty-year-old regime in place more than ever invites us to imagine the dynamics of consolidation or change that are at work in the Cameroonian public sphere,” writes Serge Alain Godong, economist, graduate of Sciences-Po Paris, EHESS, and Paris X, in an analysis.
For the author, the starting point is 2018. “The astonishment gradually subsided over the ‘scored penalty’ of which Mr. Maurice Kamto had publicly declared himself the ‘shooter’.” Since then, Paul Biya has been sworn in. The MRC has been neutralized. And most Cameroonians “have taken note of the quiet continuation of the stay, on this soft seat of Etoudi.”
Godong bases his demonstration on “game theory.” Two assumptions: “humans are fundamentally calculating” and “they need information” to secure their gains. An election then becomes “a specific moment when a particular man proposes to a national community a form of contract about the future.”
However, according to him, Kamto cannot propose a more credible contract than the one in place. “The approximately 8.5 million Cameroonian voters called to vote next year could only give their votes to Mr. Maurice Kamto if it is perfectly clear to them that he will, in the coming years, better guarantee their interests than Mr. Paul Biya.”
The author identifies about 16 million current “winners”: civil servants, formal private sector employees, liberal professions and their families. “It can therefore be estimated that it is 1500 billion CFA francs that are annually distributed […] among the approximately 16 million Cameroonians who are part of these winners.” They benefit from the payroll, public contracts, major projects. “These Cameroonians and their relatives will certainly vote for the RDPC and its candidate, fully aware.”
Hence the “prisoner’s dilemma”: without coordinated information and without proof of a superior gain model, the voter prefers the status quo. “Cameroonians are therefore perfectly aware that the current situation is rather deficient; but many among them clearly seem to prefer it to a presumably superior equilibrium position, about which they can say nothing with certainty.”
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The analysis then drifts towards what Godong calls the “Bamiléké problem.” Citing Meredith Terretta, he recalls the distinction between “gung” and “lepue”: territory and freedom. From there would stem an “economic and social Darwinism” attributed to the Grassfields natives. Consequence: “Mr. Kamto is therefore not seen with the ordinary eyes of a person proposing an alternative political offer […] but rather as a sort of evil avatar come to carry out the diabolical plan.”
The author speaks of a “syndrome” different from Stockholm syndrome. He describes a system of “eating together”: “everyone is linked to everyone else by a small scheme; everyone takes from their neighbor.” A model where “the winners are simply those who ‘eat’ and the losers, those who are hungry.”
Godong’s conclusion: whoever the winner, “will therefore have no choice but to act quickly and strongly.” Quickly to redistribute. Strongly to make the economy the only “battle horse.” Growth at 6%, deficit reduction, fight against corruption: “all this is serious and urgent.”
In the end, the analyst believes that the political game “will become less and less lazy, less and less rentier.” And that the country needs “a strong and committed Paul Biya” to manage the aftermath.
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