SWELA,ethnicity,and democracy in Cameroon’s patrimonial state: An anthropological critique

Introduction

… SWELA summarily was relevant when it was created, it is still very relevant today and to the near foreseeable future, SWELA will always be relevant. Our Association has always maintained its watchdog role for the South West Region … (The Sun, 20 October 2009).

With these words, Dr. Enow-Orock George, the former Secretary-General of SWELA from 2006 to 2009, sought to emphasize the perennial role that their organization has had in fighting for the regional interests of the South-West Region of Cameroon since the country’s return to multiparty politics in 1990. SWELA is an acronym for the South-West Elite Association . It is an organization created by the (mainly political) elite of the South-West Region (formerly South-West Province) of Cameroon, to cater to the social, political, and economic interests of southwestners. I must indicate right now that SWELA is only a representation of the plethora of similar elite organizations that have emerged in Cameroon since 1990 (see Nkwi, 2006; Nyamnjoh and Rowlands, 1998).

This article explores democracy and its practical politics through the social construction of an ethno-regional identity in contemporary Cameroon from the perspective of political elites in the SWELA. Democracy, as both an idiomatic and concrete expression of the desire for inclusion and participation by individuals and groups who see themselves as previously marginalized, must now be acknowledged as “a sense of embattlement, a felt need for dogged determination, and an exasperation with the forces” that engender such feelings of marginality and exclusion (Bubandt, 2010; see also Paley, 2002). As anthropologists we must therefore pay attention to the social and cultural forces that individuals and various groups in a given context are confronted to and what kind(s) of political resources they now call upon to articulate this desire for democratic inclusion and participation.

In contemporary Cameroon, a country long governed by the patrimonial power of both Ahmadou Ahidjo and Paul Biya, its former and current heads of state (see Bayart, 1979; Geschiere, 1982, 2009; kofele-Kale, 1986; Nyamnjoh, 2005; Schatzberg, 1986), ethnic and regional (as an extension of the ethnic) identities have been very much part of the equation of such patrimonial governance. However, between 1960 and 1990 when the country was under a single-party rule not only was the power of these patrimonial head of states unquestionable by other members of the ruling elite but also their emphasis on national unity dissuaded elites from resorting to ethnic mobilizations to produce political actions (see Geschiere, 2009; Prouzet, 1974).Yet, when Cameroon returned to the path of democratization in 1990 ethnic and regional identities retained their salience for the articulation of democratic politics, although in new and surprising ways.

I argue that in contemporary Cameroon ethno-regional politics is the hand-maiden of democratic politics. In the backdrop of the tacit but firm prohibition on elites from engaging in ethnic politics under the one-party state, the transition or historical shift from the one-party state to multiparty politics in Cameroon has yielded some measure of empowerment for the elites. It has “democratized” the possibilities and avenues for political elites to engage in ethno-regional and patrimonial politics. This might sound rather ironic considering the traditionally erroneous opposition between patrimonialism (personalization of power) and democracy as regime types (see Bratton and Van de Walle, 1994, 1997; Clapham, 1985). As I will explain further, focusing on ethno-regionalism as a conceptual trope to engage the dynamics of political developments in the history of Cameroon’s postcolonial state enriches our grasp of democracy as a soluble, contextual formation of political practices, especially by the elites. It illuminates not only the changing political context and circumstances of political actors in the country but also their aspirations for greater participation and inclusion into the significant mechanisms of state-centered redistribution.

I situate and unpack my arguments within a careful combination of documentary sources, ethnographic interviews and observations obtained during fieldwork on political elites in Southwestern Cameroon at various times between 2007 and 2013. To explore these concerns anthropologically, I follow the methodological suggestion by Cris Shore. He suggests that in studying elites we can eschew some of the methodological challenges, especially in terms of the definition of “boundaries and memberships” about who is an elite and who is not, by paying significant analytic attention to “the language and practices through which elites represent themselves and the techniques they use to legitimise their position” (Shore, 2002: 13).

An anthropological approach to ethnicity and democracy in Africa

How might individuals or groups do democratic politics from an ethnic or regional standpoint? Are not these two opposed to each other, one might ask? In this article I suggest that far from being its antithesis, democratic politics in contemporary Cameroon is enabled by ethno-regional politics. Furthermore, taking the example of the elites within SWELA I suggest that the role of elites in African projects of democratization, hitherto the object of derisive critique in much of the current political scholarship on account of their linkages to ethnic politics, must be critically re-evaluated. Indeed, much of the recent political scholarship on non-Western projects of democratization have approached the complexities of ethnicity, elites, and democratic politics from a typically formalist standpoint, wishing to see the same processes of Western democratic politics reproduced in form as well as in spirit outside the west (see Spencer, 1997, 2007). In Africa, the consequence of such attachment to formalist accounts of democratization has been a weightily damning assessment and pathological representation so far.

For instance, Nicolas Van de Walle argues that as ethnicity and ethnic politics constitute “the stronger link between political elites and the citizenry … incumbents continue to focus their strategy on using state resources to put a majority coalition of ethnic elites who are assumed to be able to bring along their communities’ support” (2007: 55, 67). This explains his view that both ethnicity and patronage are “antithetical to democracy” (Van de Walle, 2007: 59; see also Bratton and Van de Walle, 1994, 1997). Similarly, Von Soest (2010: 6) sees such political practices as clearly “incompatible with the realisation of a democracy” in several postcolonial contexts in Africa. More pointedly, Engel and Olsen (2005:1) had earlier concluded that “more than a decade after the end of the Cold War and the ‘second wind of change’, many of Africa’s political systems at best resemble façade democracies.”

I propose an alternative reading of the relationship between ethno-regional politics and democracy in Africa and the role of political elites in it. Drawing from the analysis of the practices of political actions enacted by elites within the SWELA as vernacular forms of democratic politics, I suggest that their cultural logics of ethno-regionalism link up to democratic politics in different, yet productive ways when considered in terms of how they generate other values associated with the ethics of democracy. These values include such aspects as political participation and representation, deliberation (voice), and political (if not institutional) accountability.

I also question the existing local, contextual accounts of the practices of political elites within SWELA as driven solely by their selfish personal interests (see Geschiere, 2005; Konings and Nyamnjoh, 2003; Mbuagbo, 2002; Mbuagbo and Akoko, 2004; Mbuagbo and Orock, 2012; Nkwi, 2006; Nyamnjoh, 2005; Nyamnjoh and Rowlands, 1998; Orock, 2005; Yenshu-Vubo, 2006a). I examine how elite practices of ethno-regionalism within SWELA to pursue their personal interests – what Abner Cohen (1981) labeled as “particularistic functions” – also serve what Cohen describes as “universalistic functions,” in terms of securing some socioeconomic benefits for the whole South-West Region as a whole.

To engage with these concerns I am led by the following questions: why do these political elites choose to engage in Cameroon’s democratic politics through the cultural logics of ethno-regionalism and not on an ethic of national citizenship? What cultural repertoires constitute this practice of ethno-regionalism? Finally, to what extent do such political elite imaginations and practices evoke alternative ways for understanding how state–society relations (political participation), the politics of redistribution and political accountability are pursued in Cameroon?

I explore these questions in the backdrop of recent scholarship within the rubric of what is seen as the anthropology of democracy. This recognizes that while democracy may be a global ethic of emancipation and participation, it must be approached as a “lived” social practice that is “vernacularised” (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1997; Kalström, 1996; Michelutti, 2007, 2008; Paley, 2002, 2008, Werbner, 2004). More precisely, Lucia Michelutti argues that such processes of “vernacularization” follow (pre)-existing cultural forms, histories and idioms of politics (2008:1–6; see also Comaroff and Comaroff, 1997: 125–128). Peter Geschiere (2009) has shown that both historically and in contemporary times the ethic of political participation in democratic politics hinges critically on a politics of recognition of membership or quite simply a politics of belonging (see also Englund and Nyamnjoh, 2004).

Within this line of anthropological critique on the links between ethnicity, democracy and elites, this study resonates with and, hopefully, enriches Richard Werbner’s (2004) arguments on the complexities that link elites to ethnicity and democracy in Africa. As Werbner argues, for a more realistic account of postcolonial Africa today that goes beyond mere pathological representations, anthropology must turn to what he describes as a “critical public anthropology,” which moves past “the Machiavellian suspicion of elites” as solely self-serving and conspiratorial political agents (2004: 2, 10; see also Marcus, 1983: 10–12). To do so he suggests that “ethnography now has to show how far and in which ways that debate is constitutive of the public sphere” by paying “more attention to reasonable deliberation, to the political art of negotiated power in good governance, and to the analysis of ethnic relations of the buildup of trust and accommodation … ” (Werbner, 2004: 11).

In the context of Bostwana, he argues that the “politics of recognition and pressure groups” pursued by minorities in general is one in which “other minorities may be led by powerful and ethnically conscious elites’ as they seek to articulate ‘claims for their cultural rights’ within its democratic context (Werbner, 2004: 49–50). For Werbner therefore, the central conundrum in the ethnicity, elite, and democracy nexus is the question of how political agents articulate their citizenship rights in democratic politics: whether and when they do so as individuals as desired by the liberal ideal or when and how they do so by resorting to the demands for collective rights (2004: 48). Like Werbner, I deal with a politics of belonging or recognition that articulates ethnic claims on the state within Cameroon’s localized logic of democracy premised on belonging. I also pay attention to the “vernacular” forms of democratic politics that focus on what I see as the deliberative practices of negotiation and compromises by South-West elites and Cameroon’s Head of State, Paul Biya.

Cameroon’s “advanced democracy” as “postcolonial wisdom”

In thinking about political liberalizations as cultural projects, Comaroff and Comaroff have argued for the need to move beyond multiculturalism as a political expression of difference, especially in postcolonial polities. They propose the adoption of a related notion of “policulturalism,” wherein ‘the prefix ‘poli-’ marks two things: plurality and its politicisation’ under democratization (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2003:459). Like many postcolonies characterized by Comaroff and Comaroff above, Cameroon is a multi-ethnic state whose heritage is diverse: a triple colonial experience that began with Germany and then saw its partition between Britain and France after World War I. The achievement of independence in 1960 by the French Cameroon was followed by its reunification with a portion of British Cameroons (Southern Cameroons) in 1961 within a Federal Republic, after a plebiscitary vote. It is now a country peopled by a plethora of about 270 ethnic groups that speak almost an equal number of mutually exclusive languages (UNRISD, 2000: 57). But these historical junctures have added the colonially inherited languages, English and French, as official languages today that also serve as grounds for identity claims (Konings and Nyamnjoh, 2003).

As I indicated earlier on, prior to political liberalization in 1990, during the era of the one-party state from 1966 to 1990 under both Ahmadou Ahidjo (1960–1982) and Paul Biya (1982–1990), the emphasis on national unity meant there was little room for the expression of ethnicity in elite political actions. For instance, Cameroon’s first Head of State, Ahmadou Ahidjo, insisted that “National unity means that in the work-yard of national construction [development efforts] there is neither Ewondo nor Duala, neither Bamileke nor Boulou, Fulbe or Bassa; we are one and all, simply Cameroonians” (Ahidjo, 1964). Political elites were selected by the presidents from the various ethnic groups into the circle of a ruling elite that Bayart has called the “hegemonic alliance” (1979). They were therefore discouraged from making demands or mobilizing on the basis of ethnic or regional identification (Geschiere, 2009: 39). The word “tribe” was excised from the national identification papers of the country (Banock, 1993: 92). Any elite who defied this tacit rules faced potential victimization from Ahidjo (see Prouzet, 1974: 55). All these politically restrictive injunctions on the elites not to play the ethnic card changed once Cameroon adopted measures towards political liberalization that encouraged the formation of political and civil society organizations. In fact, the Cameroonian state itself came to reverse its ideological stance on the role of ethnicity in state construction.

The politics of ethno-regional elite associations such as articulated by SWELA must, therefore, be understood within the context of the dialectic relationship between state formation and the crystallizations and fragmentations of ethnic identities in Cameroon. Kapferer argues that in our effort to understand political mobilization and action, we must remember that the force of ethnicity and ethnic nationalism is revealed in the “cultural logics” that people hold about the state and its institutions, not in reference to some kind of primordial appeal of ethnicity (Kapferer, 2002: 5). That is, we must understand how ethnic organization and mobilization such as those undertaken by the South-West political elite in Cameroon are the means to engage in the material politics orchestrated by state action. Similarly, writing of ethnic politics in Kenya long ago, David Parkin (1978: 173) contended that when a state promotes itself “as an ethnic framework for political belief and action” the result is that it makes itself amenable to ethnic or subnational claims, such as those shown to be expressed here by SWELA in Cameroon.

The recent and ongoing wave of Cameroon’s democratization began on the 26th of May 1990 in the town of Bamenda, in the North-West Region of Cameroon. In Bamenda, the Cameroonian people forcefully reintroduced multiparty politics in the country by the illegal creation and launching of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) party under the leadership of its Chairman, John Fru Ndi (see (Mbembe and Roitman, 1995; Mbu, 1993; Roitman, 2005; Takoungang and Krieger, 1998). After a lot of resistance from the Biya regime and the national party, the Cameroon’s Peoples Democratic Movement (CPDM), these calls for political reforms led to a parliamentary vote approving multiparty politics. This vote was promulgated into Law No. 90/053 of December 1990 by Paul Biya, allowing for freedoms of speech and association, thus legalizing the formation of political parties. By the 2000s the number of political parties went beyond 200 parties and now stands at 248, mainly reflecting ethnic and regional considerations for their formations in the first place (Ewumbue-Monono, 2001). As such, from the onset the return to multiparty politics in Cameroon was mired in a cultural politics of belonging, marked by the very politicization of its cultural identities that Comaroff and Comaroff (2003) refer to above.

Also, as this constitutional amendment allowed for the freedoms of association and speech it was not only political parties that were created. As early as 1991, the political landscape of elite politics became markedly fragmented along cultural or ethnic lines, quite in opposition to the years under the one-party regimes of both Ahidjo and Biya. This was mainly expressed by the emergence of elite associations of an “ethno-regional” character. These associations articulate various claims and counter-claims on an already economically poorly governed and overburdened state of Cameroon. They profess to be “apolitical,” seeking only to “protect’ and further the interests of their variously defined ethno-regional communities. In practice, they are engaged in the politics of belonging.

This refers simply to their practices of mobilization, articulation, and politicization of some sense of (regional) identity that comes with a sense of attachment to place because of the anxiety or fear that such attachment is threatened (Yuval-Davis, 2006: 197). The first of these associations to emerge was the SWELA. Its actions were supported by another organization within the South-West Region made up of traditional rulers of villages, called the South-West Chiefs Conference (SWCC). Others soon emerged, such as the Grand Sawa Movement, Essingang, Association des Elites du Grand Nord, the Northwest Elite Association (NOWELA), the Laakam, covering the various self-defined “ethno-regions” in the country (see Nkwi, 2006; Nyamnjoh and Rowlands, 1998; Yenshu-Vubo, 2006c for more discussions of these).

The formation of ethno-regional elite associations in the cultural politics of belonging is therefore part of broader political struggles that conflate ethnic and political party alignments within them from the early years of democratization. It is true that Cameroon does not really have a dominant, majority ethnic group but rather a constellation of relatively same-sized ones and smaller-sized groups (see UNRISD, 2000). Yet in the early years of its democratization Cameroon’s ethnically complex urban communities were marred by inter-ethnic clashes. These clashes opposed those who deemed themselves to be “natives” or autochthones in these urban centers and the migrants or their descendants who they branded as cultural “strangers” drawn to the urban centers as a result of the colonial political economy of plantation agriculture or itinerant trade (see among others, Fonchingong, 2004; Geschiere, 2009; Geschiere and Nyamnjoh, 2000; Konings and Nyamnjoh, 2000; Mbuagbo and Orock, 2012; Nyamnjoh, 2005; Yenshu-Vubo, 2006c). This was mainly so within the coastal and forests communities of the Littoral, South-West and Center Regions.

In the coastal town of Douala within the Littoral Region, ethnic Duala and related groups (who were mainly in the ruling CPDM) protested the dominance of migrant ethnic Bamiléké (who were mainly in the opposing SDF party) during the electoral processes as a result of their greater numbers. They complained that while they were ready to accept democratization they would not consent to “stranger domination” in the local political life of their urban community (Yenshu-Vubo, 2006c). Such party alignments in the cities of Kumba and Limbe in the South-West Region led the so-called natives to derogatively label the Bamenda grassfield migrants as “come-no go” (scabies) who will not return to their homelands and they often adopted intimidating measures to pre-empt or forestall these migrants from voting for the opposition SDF party.

In either case, these actions by self-styled “natives” were animated by the sense that they were threatened in their homelands by the more numerically superior and assertive cultural “strangers” whose ethnic groups still enjoyed pre-eminence in their own homelands. As I hope to show, such anxieties about settler domination which Yuval-Davis (2006) argues to be at the crucible of the politics of belonging and their own desire to participate more fully in the stakes of Cameroon’s politics of democracy, have a long history in the South-West Region and are therefore crucial to the understanding of the political actions of SWELA (see also Nkwi, 2006).

It is partly in recognition of the “autochthonous” anxieties and tense inter-ethnic developments within its democratic politics that Paul Biya promulgated Law No. 96/031 of February 1996. This codified a vague notion of indigenous minority rights and advanced protective guarantees to some cultural groups (largely undefined). In practice, these promises have been followed through with the appointment of “natives” as local Government Delegates over elected mayors of local city councils who in most instances were migrants or descendants of migrants to those cities (for more on these, see Mbuagbo, 2002; Mbuagbo and Orock, 2012; Nyamnjoh, 2005).

I suggest that Cameroon’s current framework of democratic politics, one that has been aptly labeled by the Biya regime, yet derisively ridiculed by some observers, as “advanced democracy” (see Ndjio, 2008; Nyamnjoh, 2005), could be seen as one expression of the kind of “postcolonial wisdom” that Werbner (2004: 19–20) advocates to be necessary to produce peaceful democratic settlements. Paul Biya sees an “advanced democracy” as one that recognizes the complexities and intricacies of ethnic and cultural diversity for democratic politics in postcolonial societies such as Cameroon. In other words, it is one that seems to conform to the kind of formation that Comaroff and Comaroff (2003) characterize as “policulturalism” above.

The nature of political competition in Cameroon’s multiparty politics is therefore rather intriguing. Although the number of officially registered political parties now stands at 248, it is important to point out that only the ruling party, Biya’s CPDM, has absolute domination and territorial coverage over the entire country. In the 2007 parliamentary elections, the CPDM won 153 of the 180 seats and in the recently held first ever senate elections in Cameroon in April 2013, out of the 70 electable senators the CPDM won 56 to 14 for the SDF. If we add to these the fact that Biya has appointed 30 other senators as constitutionally mandated, this gives the regime a super majority of 86 out of 100 senators, plus or minus two appointees from different, marginal political parties. But to take this lopsided domination of the CPDM party as evidence for the lack of political competition in Cameroon’s democratization will be mistaken. From the onset, political competition has simply been displaced from a party-centered to an ethno-regional approach to politics, as I explain below.

The competitive politics of ethno-regionalism: The SWELA example

Like all other elite associations mentioned above, SWELA, claims to speak and demand political recognition for the development needs of “their” community, the South-West Region, from the government of President Biya. It acts as a “single voice” (though often supplemented by the SWCC) in making such demands and lobbying on behalf of the South-West. But this emphasis on its ethno-regional character is not to suggest that the South-West itself is a single ethnic group. On the contrary, it is a complex constellation of various ethnic communities distinguished as much by linguistic as in other cultural elements, although to some extent there are also some elements of cultural contiguity (Yenshu-Vubo, 2006b, 2006c). These ethnic groups include the Orocko, Bayang, Bakweri, Bangwa, Bassosi, Bakossi, Bafawa, Balong, and Mbo (see Nkwi, 2006: 135). As Yenshu-Vubo (2006b: 135–157) observes, prior to and throughout the administrative boundary-making practices of the colonial state and the two successive postcolonial regimes of Ahidjo and Biya, these groups have long co-existed alongside and intermingled with other ethnic groups. One such group, for instance, the Widikum, now found in the North-West Region, was part of the Cameroons Province (South-West Region) until 1974.

Such colonial and postcolonial transformations have often strengthened the boundaries among some ethnic groups even as they engendered transmutations among others to the extent that these now yield different “levels of historical awareness” among the various groups (Yenshu-Vubo, 2003). Thus, the South-West Regional identity and interests which SWELA upholds is the product of colonial, but much more so of postcolonial inventions. It is the direct result of re-splintering and re-appropriation of political space in Cameroon in general and Anglophone Cameroon in particular by state authorities and political elites (see Nkwi, 2006:130; Yenshu-Vubo, 2006b: 8–30, 153–178). Due to these different levels of “historical awareness” social and political actors tend to define their ethnic identities in a flexible manner, sometimes too restrictively and at other times quite expansively, depending on who they are dealing with.

SWELA must, therefore, be seen as a practice of boundary-making not unlike that envisioned by Barth (1969) where ethnic boundaries are not “fixed” and restrictive but situational and shifting. For instance, for a brief moment in the early years of democratization in the 1990s, the South-West elites and those of the Littoral Region joined forces in an even larger ethno-regional association that they called the “Grand Sawa Movement.” This was built on the idea that the South-West and Littoral Regions share a cultural affinity as “Sawa” or coastal peoples. Yenshu-Vubo (2006b: 28, 2006b) is therefore correct to argue that ethnic identity practices in Cameroon are largely “transethnic,” a conceptual move similar to Werbner’s(2004: 67) account of Botswana where the practice of ethnicity is “variable in its inclusiveness.” The complex agglomeration of largely similar but not the same ethnic groups within the South-West Region which SWELA purports to represent must therefore lead us, like Nkwi (2006: 135), to see it as a “supra-ethnic association.”

While SWELA makes demands on the state, its political significance must, however, be seen more within the narrower context of Anglophone Cameroon (the two areas, the North-west, and South-West Regions that once constituted former British Southern Cameroons). As a result of historical processes of late colonial and postcolonial elite politics, the elite of both Anglophone regions have constantly defined their regions as opposed to each other. After the plebiscitary vote of 1959, John Ngu Foncha, a man of the Bamenda Province (now North-West Region) emerged as winner. He took over as Prime Minister from Emmanuel Lifafe Endeley, a man of the Cameroon’s Province (now South-West Region) and the stage was thus set for bitter relations of political marginalization of the erstwhile proud South-West elite.

From that moment until the mid-1990s, the South-West elite held on to a consistent narrative of political decline and victimization at the hands of Foncha and succeeding elites from the North-West (see Konings, 2003: 36–37; Ngoh, 1999: 177). As Konings writes, “in pre-empting for themselves the choice jobs and best land in the South-West following independence in 1961, the North-West elite provoked strong resentment among south-westners” (2003: 36). Eyoh (1998: 354) also writes that “this construal of the north-western elites as the greatest menace to the political fortunes of the South-West Province is advanced through a narrative of the postcolonial trajectory which indicts north-western elites as accomplices and beneficiaries of their regions’ misfortunes.” This resonates with what Werbner (2004: 58) similarly observes of the Kalanga elite in Botswana to be “collective memories of suffering and domination.” Nkwi (2006: 129–131) shows that after these anti-Bamenda feelings were ignited and put into circulation by various prominent indigenous political figures of the South-West, the VIKUMA association was started on 4 September 1964. Although short-lived, its mission was to vocalize the political, economic, and social problems of the people of the Cameroon Province (now South-West Region), in the hands of the “Bamenda oligarchy” of the North-West elite (see Nkwi, 2006: 130).

It is thus understandable that the main political objective of the South-West elites from the days of decolonization through to the era of democratization since 1990 has been a constant desire to assert themselves against those they see as their politically “significant other,” the North-West Region. As this had proven difficult under a one-party state in which the North-West elite enjoyed greater confidence and visibility, they hoped multiparty politics would offer greater possibilities to achieve these competitive political ends, especially because Biya espoused a politics of belonging. It is against this backdrop that the ethno-regional politics of the South-West elite in SWELA must be understood. SWELA expresses Werbner’s (2004: 67) idea of the “super-tribe,” which occurs when there is a “broader category of culturally related people, widely dispersed in tribes and diaporas, both rural and urban” (2004: 67).

Nyamnjoh and Rowlands’ (1998: 327) claim that other elite associations in Cameroon are defined by ethnicity while SWELA is defined by region must therefore be questioned in part, because it seems to imply that other elite associations are contiguous with bounded, natural ethnic communities. Like SWELA, other elite associations such as NOWELA (for the North-West Region) also claim to represent the interests of a complex mix of different ethnic groups within a clearly delineated administrative territorial unit. It is only in this sense that the various ethnic groups come to think of themselves as having common political and economic interests to defend; they then constitute pan-ethnic elite associations that act as ethno-regional political cartels. SWELA’s actions, like all ethno-regional politics, could therefore be partly approached as “a reactive ethnic regional movement” (Hechter and Levi, 1979: 278), tied to a historical perception of marginality in terms of socioeconomic and political opportunities within the politics of Cameroon’s postcolonial state construction (see also Woods, 1989 for a similar analysis of Cote D’ Ivoire under Boigny).

Ethno-regionalism is thus the strategic concern by political actors over their interests in the redistributive politics of the government towards their local ethnic communities within the same region (understood in its geographic as well as cultural senses). For the political actors involved, it seems to matter little if this is achieved at the detriment of other local communities with which such actors feel no ethnic or broader regional attachment in terms of common economic and political interests. For political elites in the current context of Cameroon, this sort of political action resonates well with the politics of democratization and the government’s ongoing discourse about a gradual but progressive decentralization towards semi-autonomous administrative regions (see Fonchingong, 2004; Mbuagbo and Akoko, 2004; Mbuagbo and Orock, 2012).

SWELA: A micro-political community in an “advanced democracy”?

SWELA was created by the political elite of the South-West Region in the middle of the tumultuous and chaotic moments of Cameroon’s democratic struggles and civic unrest in the early 1990s. With its headquarters in the South-West town of Kumba, it was officially registered as a civil society organization on 21 August 1991. In an uncanny reflection of the process of constitutional-making typical of state-making, the preamble section of SWELA’s constitution, adopted on 7 August 1991, declares that

We, the indigenes of the South West Province of the Republic of Cameroon,

Having firmly and solemnly resolved: To live in unity and harmony, conscious of the need for self development, conscious of our talent, skill, specialized training and our material resources, dedicated to the improvement of the lot of our people as well as to the well being of our nation Cameroon.

DO hereby make, enact, and give to ourselves the following constitution (SWELA, 1991: 1, capitalized as in original).

In Article 6 on membership, this constitution goes on to stipulate that

Membership shall be open to all persons who fall within any of the subparagraphs herein below (a) any person whose father and mother are indigenes of the South West Province; (b)any person whose father or mother alone is an indigene of the South West Province and whose commitment to the welfare of the province is, in the opinion of the membership committee of his/her subdivision, unquestionable; (c) all persons not falling within the provisions of 6(a) or (b) above but whose commitment to the interests of the South-West province is considered unquestionable by the membership committee and approved by two third of the Divisional Coordinating committee and the General Secretariat, provided the candidate does not belong to any association or organization whose interests are considered incompatible with those of SWELA (SWELA, 1991: 2, my emphasis).

In this vein, it arrogated to itself the roles of political representative, mediator between the people of the South-West Region and the state of Cameroon, as well as lobbyist for the regional interests it claims to represent. As part of the strategy to legitimise this self-defined role, the “We” discourse in the constitutional affirmation is meant to establish it as an open organization for any “son or daughter” of the South-West Region. The “We” strategically appeals to any regional sense of belonging that many people in the region may have. But it does not appeal to just anybody living in the South-West Region.

Its membership criteria outlined above clearly suggest a hierarchy of this claim to belonging. At the bottom of that hierarchy of belonging are those whose claim to membership is subject to adjudication. These have to proof that although having no “indigenous” origins they have an unquestionable “commitment to the interests of the South-West” and there is little guarantees that this will be enough to secure admission (see Geschiere, 2009). Understandably, then, since its creation there has been general a perception that SWELA is a xenophobic association aimed at excluding the settler population, which is mostly from the Northwest Region, from participating in the political life of the local communities in the South-West Region (see Geschiere, 2009; Nkwi, 2006; Nyamnjoh, 2005; Orock, 2005; Yenshu-Vubo, 2006b).

SWELA, like many of such elite organizations that were created after it, has thus established itself between the blurred boundaries of what Marcus (1983: 42) depicts as the formal and informal orders of power among the political elite. Although clearly a non-state organization, its formalization into a fully registered elite civic association that is oriented towards the state locates it firmly within the playfield of official power-games with the state and the elite associations of other, seemingly rival, ethno-regional communities. But what kind of persons make up the membership of SWELA and where did the idea for such an elite organization originate from?

Nyamnjoh and Rowlands (1998: 227) as well as Walter Nkwi (2006) credit the idea of its creation to a lawyer from Manyu Division working in Yaoundé called Barrister A. T. Enaw in late 1991. His ideas are said to have inspired a meeting of five political figures from the South-West. These include David M Iyok (businessman), Chief Emmanuel Tabi-Egbe (former minister and roving ambassador at the time), Chief Ephraim Inoni (serving minister at the time), Chief Fomenky (businessman), and Barrister Enaw himself, who was the least known figure of these five. Since its creation its members have mostly been powerful men and women (but mostly men) who are considered as “sons” and “daughters” of one or the other of the various ethnic groups within the South-West Region. It is however important to point out that this exclusionary and elitist outlook is equally recognized by those in the SWELA itself to be the source of their difficulty in attracting a growing membership.

In an address in 2006, SWELA’s Secretary-General at the time, Dr Enow-Orock George, complained that

One of the problems faced by SWELA is that of grass roots adherence. The appellation ‘elite’ has been misconstrued to mean white collar executives. This to us is an aberration. Our vision of SWELA is an all-inclusive forum. An elite to us is anyone with potential in whatever domain with the ability and willingness to move the province forward. This wise, a primary school teacher in Akwaya who is prepared to spare a thousand francs to attend a SWELA meeting is more of an ‘elite’ than a director in a porch office in Yaoundé who does not respond to SWELA appeals (SWELA, 2006a).

In 2006 when the www.swela.org website was still maintained (it has since gone dysfunctional), I noted what seemed to me as an indication of the caliber of members SWELA seeks or at least those it values and promotes in the very long list of what it describes as “Resource Persons.” This list looked more like a “who is who” in the South-West Region. Among several others, the list included Chief Ephraim Inoni (serving Prime Minister at the time, 2005 to 2009 and now in detention for corruption charges), Peter Mafany Musonge, (former Prime Minister, 1996 to 2004 and now Grand Chancellor and newly appointed senator), Rose Abunaw Makia (former Vice President of National Assembly and still-serving MP), Meoto Paul Njie (Director of Cabinet at the Prime Minister’s Office under Ephraim Inoni, 2005–2009), Professor Ngole Ngole Elvis (former Minister of Forestry and Wildlife until December 2011 now suspected for corruption charges), Chief Dr. Dion Ngute (Minister Delegate at the Ministry of External Relations in charge for Commonwealth Affairs since 1997), Dr. Dorothy Njeuma (former Vice-Chancellor of the Universities of Buea nd Yaounde as well as former Politbureau Member for the CPDM, now with Elections Cameroon), Professor Peter Agbor Tabi (former minister and now back to being a minister and Assistant Secretary-General at the Presidency).

The list goes on and on with people of this caliber, in terms of positions of bureaucratic power and wealth (SWELA, n.d.). No secondary school teacher in a distant community within the region was listed even as Dr. Enow-Orock, its former secretary, had declared they would accept such persons as elites of the South-West. Yet it is quite plausible that a primary school teacher in a distant area of the region such as Akwaya could well serve as a “resource person” too, giving and conveying vital information to and from the people of the area about their plight and the potential solutions to alleviate those. My sense of the “invisibility” of ordinary members in SWELA was further reinforced by my observations of an event jointly organized by SWELA and SWCC during my fieldwork in 2011. During this event, dubbed “the South-West Mega Forum,” while several “ordinary-looking” and mainly unknown people also showed up, these were merely confined to staying outside the hall. Most of these powerful elites named above engaged in deliberations inside the hall.

I also found that SWELA has a list of membership that counts several hundred members. But as the personal assistant to the current executive secretary (who was always unavailable for an interview) informed me, the core of the organization’s activities revolves around these high caliber members who are the powerful and wealthy in the South-West Region. These often contribute hugely to the organization’s financial viability. This finding is actually consistent with the general understanding that elites seek to organize themselves corporately in an exclusionary manner (Cohen, 1981: xvi, 129–132; see also Marcus, 1983). But it is also argued that elites are so exclusively organized “to promote shared interests” (Cohen, 1981: xvi). One might therefore take such statements about SWELA’s willingness to have ordinary people like teachers as members to be a platitude, one that is expressed to guard against the criticism that its elitist outlook necessarily evokes in others.

Yet, during my time in the field although several persons I spoke with often expressed their desire to see a more open SWELA that anyone could join, they often lauded the very fact that the South-West now “has a voice to ask on our behalf.” For instance, on 12 January 2011, two weeks prior to the “South-West Mega Forum” mentioned above, I was visiting a friend at the West African branch of the Pan-African Institute of Development (PAID-WA) in Buea. There I met two teachers, Agbortoko and Ebong. They argued that while they also saw themselves as elites, they understood that “those elites from the South-West who hold top positions in government are better placed to lobby or force the hand of the government to do things in the South-West.” In the case of the SWELA organization, then, what exactly do these men and women in the South-West Region seek to achieve?

SWELA’s ethno-regional politics

Studies by Nyamnjoh and Rowlands (1998) and Nkwi (2006) make a valid point in demonstrating that in its very formative phase, that is, between 1991 and 1996, SWELA was not a monolithic block. It was rather characterized by fission or fragmentation. First, this fission was between the faction of elites located in the capital city of Yaounde and that of elites in the local South-West Region, known respectively as SWELA I and SWELA II, and then between a second fission that saw the emergence of a third faction led by Akpo Mukete, the son to the Paramount Chief of the Bafaw in Kumba, Victor Mukete (for details, see Nkwi, 2006: 127; Nyamnjoh and Rowlands, 1998: 328–329).

Another common element in both studies is the substantial attention to the implications of the emergence of SWELA for the politics of identity and exclusion within intercommunity relations in the South-West Region. For these two studies and other related studies, the South-West political elite, through organizations such as SWELA and SWCC, has played a significant role in the exclusionary politics of belonging that they deem detrimental to what they see as efforts towards democracy. This view of political elites and their associations is represented by Nkwi’s conclusion that mainly because of the elite “effort to manipulate ethnic diversity in Cameroon for their own self-interested ends” through elite outfits such as SWELA, “the democratic process remains an illusion in Cameroon, as in most of black Africa” (2006: 123, 140; see also Nyamnjoh, 2005: 122–123).

While I do not dismiss the idea that there are elements of self-interest animating the actions of political elites in the elite associations in Cameroon, such a view largely leaves unexamined the many ways that they work for much broader sociopolitical interests as well as speak to the deliberative and negotiated character of democracy that Richard Werbner emphasizes. In his study of the culture of elite politics among the Creole of Sierra Leone, Abner Cohen (1981: xvi) argues that elite organizations have and perform “functions and interests” that are “both universalistic and particularistic.” While the latter refers to the interests that elites may hold as “a group with corporate interests,” the former refers to the state-level universalistic functions undertaken by the elites that “may well be in the public interest” (Cohen, 1981: xvi). Crucially different, however, whereas Cohen held that such universalistic functions could only be performed by the elite by means of “‘undercover’ dealings” (1981: xvi), in Cameroon elite organizations also pursue such universalistic functions openly or formally. Although the organization’s constitution declares that SWELA is “apolitical” in terms of aligning itself with neither the ruling CPDM party nor the opposition parties, it recognizes that the association shall “nevertheless, in conformity with its special interest in the development of the South-West Province in particular and the nation at large … take the necessary line of political action to further these interests” (SWELA, 1991: 9).

SWELA’s “apolitical” stance must, however, be taken with some ambiguity. On the one hand, most of SWELA’s members are mainly members of the ruling CPDM party and usually hold important positions either in government or in public corporations. Also, the organization itself often has close collaboration with the government. An example of such close links was revealed to me by informants during fieldwork. I was told that in 2009 SWELA’s newly acquired piece of land in the central business district of Kumba for the purpose of building their central offices, was obtained free of charge, with the help of the local civil officials, notably the Senior Divisional Officer for Meme Division for which Kumba serves as the headquarter. On the other hand, SWELA has often been quite critical of certain actions and inactions or decisions and indecisions by the government in the past. SWELA’s conformity to its “apolitical credo” appears to be mainly guided by that concern for “special interest in the development of the South-West” mentioned above. To impress even more forcefully the idea that the “development” of the South West is their main object of concern, in Section 3 of SWELA’s statutes, the elites of the South-West Region declare that their objectives are, among others, to “Promote unity and foster development among its members and the South-West Province in general; promote the socioeconomic development of the Southwest Province in line with government action” (SWELA, 1991: 2).

With such objectives, it seems fair to acknowledge that SWELA makes some commitment to performing public or universalistic functions that benefit the entire South-West Region, which must be critically investigated to be validated or not. Over the years, SWELA has pursued such objectives by acting as a lobbying and pressure-group. Its members are, however, always weary to point out that they try not to appear to be doing so. One of my informants, Mr. Caven Nnoko Mbelle, a prominent member of SWELA who has also acteded as the long-serving Secretary-General of SWELA between 1993 and 2000 – as well as the controversial presidentially appointed “native” Government Delegate (with powers above the elected mayors who could be “strangers”) to the Kumba City Council from 1996 to 2008 – provded an indication of this careful approach to avoid being represented as lobbyists. Pointing to a kind of strategic intent in SWELA's insistent effort to avoid representing itself as a lobbying outfit or pressure group, he argued that:

We do not want to be seen as lobbyists or a pressure group even though we may be doing those things, because it is more comfortable for someone [the targeted figure lobbied, that is President Biya] to believe that someone[the elite] is acting freely; that he is not acting because he has a mission. If the mission of SWELA is to be seen as a pressure group or a lobby group, then it defeats the very purpose of SWELA. It should be a group of people who address issues as they come up and we develop the strategy to deal with each of these issues accordingly. SWELA is not an institution really existing; SWELA is a mentality, a vision” (Interview, 26 February 2011).

The South-West elite and the pursuit of private interests

As I have previously indicated, we must recognize with Nyamnjoh and Rowlands (1998) and Nkwi (2006) as well as others, that from its onset SWELA was very much intended as a vehicle for the expression of the personal frustrations of the South-West political elite. These frustrations were centered mainly on their ambitions for ministerial or other political appointments from President Biya during the initial years of democratization. During these early years of democratization (1990–1996) Cameroon’s Prime Minister, Mr. Achidi Achu, was a man from the North-West Region. He was presumed to be savoring political power with the elite of “his” region of origin, to their exclusion. If their avowed goals were the pursuit of development concerns for the South-West community, their undisclosed goal was to break the hegemonic and exclusionary hold of the North-West political elite in terms of power and visibility (ministerial positions) in the Biya regime, as a collective community of Anglophones (see Konings and Nyamnjoh, 2003).

To this end, they seized any opportunity they could get to make their claims for greater representation in Biya’s government. For instance, at a welcome address to President Biya on the occasion of his provincial tour to the South-West Province on 27 September 1991 in Buea, the Municipal Administrator of the Buea Rural Council who was a prominent member of SWELA, reminded “His Excellency” about “a few of our grievances.” He told Biya that “We have noticed with dismay that our province has never had a fair consideration in top administrative and political appointments” (The Oracle, 1992b: 18).

Against the backdrop of this sense of marginality among the South-West political elite, their reaction following Biya’s cabinet reshuffle of August 1996 appears quite understandable. In this new cabinet, President Biya appointed Peter Mafany Musonge from the South-West as Prime Minister, in replacement of Simon Achidi Achu from the North-West Region. This change was received with great joy by the elite of the South-West. They saw in this a realization of their long-sought victory over the elite of the North-West political elite. This feeling of victory was strengthened about a year and half later, Sunday 7 December 1997, when Biya re-appointed Peter Mafany to this position during another cabinet reshuffle.

Through one of the pro-SWELA periodicals, the South-West elite immediately adopted a boastful tone. The Pilot, a periodical based in the South-West Region at the time, published an issue entitled “After Biya’s New Gov’t, who holds Power?” The editorial answered the question in a satisfactory tone by reporting that “the son” of the South-West Region, “Peter Mafany, did not only survive the storm to get re-appointed as Prime Minister but went further to put his imprint as the Grand master of the political game in his South West constituency … The North-West came out completely marginalized this time around” (The Pilot, 1997: 7). In this glaringly celebratory and pro-SWELA propagandist press article, while the position of Prime Minister held by the South-West elite was celebrated with high value, those held by North-West elite were devalued accordingly. The overall picture painted of the North-West Region after this second cabinet change is one of a region that has lost its political clout and was out of favor with the Head of State, a situation the South-West Region was understood to have experienced not too long ago.

This feeling of satisfaction seemed quite strong between 2004 and 2009. During these years Biya had replaced Peter Mafany Musonge as Prime Minister with Chief Ephraim Inoni. Chief Inoni was not only another “indigene” of the South-West Region but, like Musonge, he is also of the same Bakweri ethnic group in the same administrative unit of Fako Division. During such “victorious” changes of the government by President Biya, SWELA often expressed its joy unabashedly. For instance after the government reshuffle of September 2006, SWELA (2006b) issued an evaluative statement as follows

COMMUNIQUE ON THE RECENT GOVERNMENT RESHUFFLE

Considering the renewal of confidence by the Head of State His Excellency President Paul Biya on Chief Ephraim Inoni, by reconfirming him as Prime Minister Head of Government;

In view of the reappointment of H.E. Prof. Ngolle Ngolle Elvis as Minister of Forestry and Wildlife; and H.E. Chief DR Dion Ngute as Minister delegate to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in charge of the Commonwealth;

Mindful of the appointment of H.E. Mengot Victor Arrey Nkongho as Minister in charge of Missions at the presidency of the Republic;

The General Secretariat of the South-West Elite Association (SWELA) deliberated on the government reshuffle of September 22 2006, and resolved as follows:

– Remark that the South-West province came out unscathed after the exercise,

– Heartily thank the Head of State for this honor and renewal of confidence to the people of the South-West Province,

– Reconfirm their total and unconditional support to the policies and institutions of the state,

– Vehemently condemn any detractors and intoxication within the province,

– Pray that in future appointments, South-Westerners be assigned to more strategic positions.

Secretary General

Dr. Enow-Orock George.

This is a very common political practice adopted by elites all over the country, referred to in the local political lexicon as “motions of support” (see Mbuagbo, 2002; Mbuagbo and Akoko, 2004). Consistent with the model of patrimonial patronage politics in Cameroon between the regime and the elites, these “motions” “are addressed to the Head of State by elites of the respective regions in furtherance of clientelistic ties” (Mbuagbo, 2002: 433). For one reason or another, elites write these letters on behalf of their local community organizations or local units of the ruling CPDM party, thanking or supporting President Biya or the Prime Minister who he appoints. In these, elites promise unalloyed support to Biya’s regime in the hope of having more opportunities for political appointments and resource allocations to their ethno-regional community (cf. Fonchingong, 2004: 46–47; Mbuagbo and Akoko, 2004: 248–252). Yet, beside this concern for their personal ambitions, elites in SWELA have also been consistent at demanding that the government attends to issues that are unquestionably in the broad interest of the South-West Region.

Articulating the neglect of South-West region and its need for development

Between 1991 and 1996, when Biya had appointed Achidi Achu from the North-West Region to the post of Prime Minister, complaints from SWELA and its surrogates were not only meant to evoke sympathy from Biya’s regime; they often assumed undertones of contestation. For instance, after its Fifth General Assembly meeting on 28 March 1992 in Mundemba (Ndian Division) in the South-West Region, SWELA adopted its “Mundemba Declaration.” In their observations of the situation of development in the region, they lamented bitterly

SWELA General Assembly notes with dissatisfaction the general neglect of the South-West Province, in respect of infrastructural, roads, telecommunications and socio-human development, despite its acknowledged almost 70 % contribution to the Gross National Product (GNP). The SWELA General Assembly is also most disappointed that notwithstanding the memoranda presented and discussed first with His Excellency the Prime Minister in Yaoundé in June 1991 and secondly His Excellency the President of the Republic and Head of State in September 1991 during his provincial tour to the South-West Province in Buea. Neither the Prime Minister nor the President of the Republic has shown any sign of what action is being contemplated on the problems raised in the two memoranda, despite their oral promises during audiences (The Oracle, 1992a: 30–31, my emphasis).

It is important to note the use of a word or phrase like “dissatisfaction” and “most disappointed” openly addressed by the elite within the SWELA to the government in this Mundemba Declaration. It would have been quite difficult for the South-West elite to utter such statements during the era of the one-party state. Indeed, the tone adopted by the elites in the entire memorandum is wholly threatening towards the Biya regime. To emphasize their threat more forcefully, in a section of the same memorandum subtitled “On the Meaning of the Recent March 1st Election Results,” the elite within SWELA tell President Biya that

During the last parliamentary elections [in which the CPDM had a dismal performance in the province] the South-West People had a chance to demonstrate their unity of thought, word and deed. This they did according to their conscience. SWELA addresses any government, present or future, to consider the development of the South-West Province as its pre-occupation as condition of our continual loyalty (The Oracle, 1992a: 33).

At the risk of repetition it must be recalled that most studies reviewed above suggest that the South-West political elites created SWELA for the sole purpose of instrumentalizing a politics of ethno-regionalism for securing Biya’s attention towards their selfish need for political appointments in his regime. Yet, it is precisely around the mid-2000s when, arguably, they seemed to have had their greatest political influence in Biya’s regime that these elites were also quite vocal in their claims for regional development for the South-West. SWELA did so largely through the intermediary of the ministers from the South-West Region within Biya’s regime. For example on 14 September 2006 it addressed a joint memorandum to these ministers (SWELA, 2006c) in the following manner

Memorandum Presented Respectively to the Prime Minister and Head of Government and to Ministers Ngolle Ngolle Elvis, Achuo Hilman Egbe and Dion Ngute, by the Secretary-General of the South-West Elite Association (SWELA) Dr. Enow-Orock George, on the Occasion of Maiden Visits on Thursday 14th September 2006 to the General Secretariat

Your Excellency,

We bring you warm and fraternal greetings from the entire people of the SWP. This occasion also affords us the opportunity to present to you the executive members of the General Secretariat of SWELA that was elected into office in the last General Assembly in Limbe on July 29 2006. We express our gratitude for your contribution towards the last General Assembly in Limbe and all the priceless sacrifices and numerous donations for the cause of SWELA over the years … The SWP is not without problems. In our numerous communiqués since this Secretariat came to office, we have made known the following to government:

… UNIVERSITY OF BUEA MEDICAL SCHOOL: We are surprised that after authorizing the opening of the Department of Human Medicine in the Faculty of Health Sciences in the UB, authorities of Higher Education are now dragging their feet over the approval of the entrance examination into the said department. This department is overdue and the entire people of the SWP are psychologically mobilized for it. We shall be very disappointed if it does note take off this academic year 2006/2007 …

ROADS: SWELA shall never emphasis enough the imperative need for our province to be bestowed with good roads. We understand that some timid efforts are being made on the part of government, but our people consider that these measures are not far reaching enough … If there is anything that makes us ashamed of being from the SWP, Your Excellency, it is the sorry state of our roads. Our people are so disappointed with government … Excellency, this issue is usually a source of embarrassment to us in our respective villages. Between us, let’s be frank without mincing words. If we are to be seen to be credible by our folk, we just must collectively do something to solve this persistent, chronic and resurgent problem …

SOCIO-ECONOMIC AMENITIES: Various parts of the province require pipe-borne water, rural electrification, equipped and staffed primary and secondary schools. Emigration into neighboring countries from our border towns and villages is on the rise due to lack of these socio-economic amenities …

Your Excellency, we do not only have a catalogue of complains but also a vision for SWELA and the entire province … Your Excellency, our vision shall remain a dream if we do not have means to accomplish them. We, as stated above, are aware of your commitment and sacrifices. But, like Oliver Twist, we cannot avoid coming to ask for more...

Thanks for giving us your time. May God bless you abundantly.

Long live SWELA

Long live the SWP

Long live Cameroon

In late October 2006, SWELA also addressed a memo directly to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buea, Professor Cornelius Mbifung Lambi. In this document, SWELA pointed to the need to immortalize Professor John O. Ebanja, a prominent elite of the South-West who had recently died, while serving as Deputy Vice-Chancellor of that university. But it was primarily “worried about the delay in the approval of the entrance examination into the said department [of medicine]” and urged “governments to proceed with this approval as soon as possible to enable the department take off this academic year 2006/2007” (SWELA, 2006c). These results, it must be signaled, turned out to have been embroiled in a crisis of mutual suspicion of corruption between the Vice-Chancellor, Lambi, and Cameroon’s Minister of Higher Education, Jacques Fame Ndongo. The latter was widely perceived to have corruptibly imposed the inclusion of names of Francophone candidates who allegedly did not sit for the exams. But prior to that Lambi had already caved in to pressure from various segments of society in Anglophone Cameroon, not least of which was that from SWELA, and published an initial list of successful candidates. Consequently, Professor Lambi was sacked from the Vice-Chancellorship by President Biya only a few months after this crisis, with the recommendation of the minister.

These political elite in the SWELA do not only engage in their lobbying or pressure activities for the development of the South-West Region within the context of the SWELA itself. They seize the opportunity provided by the activities organized by the authorities of the public administration to voice their desire for improved conditions in the South-West Region. For instance, at an evaluation meeting of the South-West report of National Economic, Social, and Cultural Development on 19 October 2006 organized by the Governor of the South-West Region, many South-West elites and chiefs were present to express their concern. They complained about issues regarding education and infrastructural development. Some of these elites complained that “children from the Southwest have often been cheated in regard to admission into professional schools in the Province” and demanded quotas of up to 30% for their children in admissions (The Post, 2006).

Others such as Mr. Caven Nnoko Mbelle, the former Secretary-General of SWELA, observed that the provision of good roads by the government would make all “Southwestners smile, live better, development will come and many other things will fall in place” (The Post, 2006). While it is difficult to assess with exactitude the impact of SWELA’s lobbying efforts on the wider context of development in their region, it is hard to deny that there has been a marked improvement in the situation of infrastructural development and public services. Compared to the situation in the early 1990s, the public infrastructure architecture in the South-West is markedly improved since the 2000s. Several village communities now have primary and secondary schools and local health centers. There is a Regional Hospital in the regional headquarter of Buea, in addition to another hospital of the same stature in the nearby town of Limbe. Between 2005 and 2007 the Douala-Kumba road has been tarred and even the embarrassing Kumba-Mamfe road for which demands have been made on the government over the last 30 years has been approved for funding since December 2012 and construction is set to begin early next year.

Interestingly, however, more recently the South-West political elite are increasingly divided over what strategy to take. While some among the older guard of political elite such as the 90-year-old Paramount Chief of Kumba, Victor Mukete, and Peter Agbor Tabi often uncritically call for more “motions of support” for President Biya’s actions, the majority of less older elite such as the Mayor of Buea, Mbella Moki, and Caven Nnoko Mbelle, are less inclined to adopt such a posture. This divide is often visible when resolutions have to be adopted at the end of political forums organized by SWELA or SWCC (see Orock, 2013). Such tension was observable on 21 April 2012 at the South-West meeting of elites in Kumba to raise funds in preparation for the region to host the same reunification event they had been lobbying for a year earlier. Here, Professor Peter Agbor Tabi who holds the post of Deputy Secretary-General at the Presidency had proposed that “I think we should address a motion of support to the Head of State for accelerating the fight against corruption.” This was in relation to the recent arrests of many prominent caciques of the Biya regime on charges of corruption. Notable amongst these is Chief Ephraim Inoni’s detention, who is currently on trial. Because the former Prime Minister Inoni is from the South-West, Tabi’s request generated a lot of anger and disagreement from most of the elite in the hall who saw this as act of betrayal of a brother, a fallen SWELAN.

Conclusion

Following an anthropological perspective that approaches democracy mainly as a global ideal of emancipation and political participation, one that is grounded in localized practices of “vernacularization,” this study on the SWELA in Cameroon has focused on their discourses and practices of the politics of belonging (ethno-regionalism), democracy, and development. My ethnographic material on Cameroon illuminates the concrete and localized expression of this global ideal of empowerment (ideologically) and political participation (practical side) in two ways.

Firstly, it emphasizes the importance of historical and cultural dynamics to the myriad of ways that democracy as an ideal can be “vernacularized.” In Cameroon, the concrete expression of the global ideal of empowerment is discernible in the historical shift from the one-party state between 1966 and 1990 to the current context of multiparty politics since 1990. In contrast to the past, the current context of multiparty politics and civil society formation under Paul Biya encourages ethnic and regional mobilizations for political reasons related both to the need for survival of the incumbent regime as well as the need for inclusion of groups that hitherto had seem themselves to be marginalized. SWELA is thus only an expression of this historical movement. Returning to Parkin and Kapferer’s arguments that ethnic politics is intrinsically linked to the political processes of inclusion and exclusion orchestrated by state formations, we can appreciate how ethno-regional elite associations in Cameroon such as SWELA are more or less responsive to Biya’s culturalized vision of democratic politics that emphasizes the identity politics of belonging (cf. Geschiere, 2009).

Secondly, in relation to Werbner’s call for a critical public anthropology that illuminates the current ways in which democratic politics is expressed in local ways of political negotiation and accommodation, I have shown how in Cameroon this process of negotiated political participation and inclusion in the democratization project is discernible in the discursive practices that ethno-regional associations such as SWELA adopt. “Motions of support” and threatening petitions or complaints, lobbying, as well as deliberations on government actions such as political appointments, all constitute such vernacular modalities of political action under the aegis of Cameroon’s “advanced” democratization. While inscribed in a narrow logic of ethno-regionalism, these practices indicate how elite political actors have sought to construct political spaces for their individual as well as collective participation, deliberation, and representation in the redistributive politics of Cameroon’s patrimonial state. In other words, these are democratic practices consonant with the exigencies of Cameroon’s patrimonialism as a social formation.

In the end, however, we must acknowledge that while the kind of democracy which is envisioned and practiced in Cameroon “does differ from Western liberal conceptions” (Kalström, 1996: 485; see also Comaroff and Comaroff, 1997; Owusu, 1992, 1997), it resonates with the core concerns for political participation, deliberation, and accountability commonly associated with a democratic ethic. But even so, it must be stressed, it is not as if in Western contexts democracy has always achieved its stated liberal objectives in full. As the eminent political scientist Robert Dahl acknowledged, “In practice democratic systems have always fallen considerably short of the criteria and values that justify democracy” (1995:46). This means that everywhere, democracy, especially of the very liberal sort, remains only a global ethic or spirit of politics that is subject to the perpetual work in progress of cultural construction.