Context: Read the previous brief on this event.
Lawyer Michele Ndoki, a former activist of the Mouvement pour la renaissance du Cameroun (MRC), published a tribune on 20 October 2026 arguing that the vacant vice-presidency could be used to install a successor to President Paul Biya without a direct election. She wrote that a vice-president could emerge from a decree "that nobody saw signed" at the moment the presidency falls vacant, and described such a manoeuvre as "a coup d'etat, and not a transition." The presidency has not responded to the claim.
The office has been empty since the constitutional revision of 14 April 2026 created it. Under the revised Constitution, the president appoints and dismisses the vice-president, and no other body shares that power. The revision does not name a successor. Where the presidency falls vacant, interim duties pass to the president of the Senate, currently Aboubakary Abdoulaye, who under the Constitution may not revise the Constitution, dissolve the National Assembly, organise a referendum or appoint members of the Constitutional Council. The Senate president is elected by the Senate, whose members are themselves elected by the regional councils.
Ndoki's argument turns on a distinction between two succession paths. If a vice-president has been appointed, she writes, that person would complete the presidential term in the event of death, resignation or definitive incapacity, with the term due to end in 2032. If the post remains vacant, interim duties fall to the Senate president pending a new presidential election. She also argues that the revised text gives the vice-president a role in petitioning the Constitutional Council to establish a president's definitive incapacity, and concludes that appointing one would mean creating "a potential rival." She acknowledges that absence from the territory does not by itself constitute definitive incapacity.
The brief of 16 October 2026 named the appointment question as the next indicator: whether Biya names a vice-president, and when. No appointment has been made. The presidency has made no statement on timing. The Senate has not scheduled a session on the matter. Ndoki's tribune adds a claim that the appointment could occur without public notice, which no official body has confirmed or denied.
The debate has drawn in other actors. On 14 October 2026, Denis Emilien Atangana of the FDC called on Biya to name a vice-president, citing the state of the head of state's health. On 5 October 2026, 11 intellectuals, among them Achille Mbembe and Akere Muna, called in a tribune in Liberation for the competent authorities to declare the presidency vacant and open a constitutional transition. On 8 October 2026, Christian Ntimbane Bomo of Heritage argued that a transition should rest on recognition that Issa Tchiroma Bakary won the 12 October 2025 election, and Gregoire Owona answered that the Constitution does not recognise a de facto vacancy and that the Republic has no dauphin.
The next indication remains whether Biya names a vice-president, and when. A second is whether any official text emerges that would give the appointment retroactive effect, a claim Ndoki raises without documentary support. The Senate, which would supply an interim head of state if the presidency fell vacant, has not scheduled a session on the matter.