Cameroon: MRC elects Tiriane Balbine Noah, the first woman to lead the party

Tiriane Balbine Noah was elected on Saturday, October 17, 2026, as president of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC), the country's main opposition party. She is the first woman to lead this political organization, reports Africanews.

The vote took place at the party's headquarters in Yaoundé during an extraordinary national convention that brought together approximately 1,200 delegates. With her only opponent having withdrawn, she was elected unopposed with more than 96% of the vote for a five-year renewable term. Previously the second vice-president, she had been serving as the interim head of the party.

The succession of Maurice Kamto

A jurist and professor, Maurice Kamto had led the MRC for fourteen years before resigning the previous month, according to Africanews, at the same time as his first vice-president, Mamadou Mota. He reportedly stepped down from leadership to try to preserve the party, suspecting that the authorities intended to dismantle it.

Before the convention, Journal du Cameroun indicated that only members who had been registered for at least three years and were up to date with their dues would be eligible to vote, and that Pierre Emmanuel Binyam had declared his candidacy against Tiriane Balbine Noah. At the time, she told her supporters: "I remain by your side!"

A convention held under pressure

The event took place despite strong pressure from the authorities to prevent it, according to Africanews. Joseph Emmanuel Ateba, the national secretary in charge of party reform, asserts that the MRC has been harassed since its creation, while acknowledging that authorization to hold the convention was ultimately obtained under good conditions.

In her speech, the new president paid tribute to the activists who have lost their freedom or their safety, and described Maurice Kamto as a sincere democrat, a humanist, and a man of peace.

Setting sights on the 2027 local elections

The MRC now says it is targeting the 2027 local elections. The arrival of a woman at the head of the leading opposition party in a country where political life remains overwhelmingly male is no small detail: across the continent, party structures are opening up slowly, and often during times of crisis. It remains to be seen whether this renewal will allow the MRC to overcome the departure of its historic figures and the administrative pressure it denounces.