Cameroonian National Union The
Cameroonian National Union (
CNU; , UNC) was formed in 1966 through a merger of the
Cameroon Union (Union Camerounaise) and the
Kamerun National Democratic Party, the major political organizations, respectively, of the state of west Cameroon and the state of east Cameroon, and four smaller parties. For the next quarter-century, the UNC/RDPC and the government were effectively one. The UNC sponsored labor, youth, and women's organizations and provided the only list of candidates for the 1973, 1978, and 1983 legislative elections.
Ahmadou Ahidjo became the first head of the UNC in 1966 and continued in that capacity after his resignation as the nation's president in 1982. Following President
Paul Biya's assumption of emergency powers in August 1983, Ahidjo, then in France, resigned as party leader. Biya was subsequently elected party chief at a special party congress in September.
CPDM In 1985, the UNC was renamed the '''Cameroon People's Democratic Movement
(CPDM or Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais'''—RDPC). Opposition parties were legalized in 1990. The CPDM won 88 of the 180 seats in the
National Assembly of Cameroon in the
March 1992 parliamentary election, and through an alliance with the
Movement for the Defense of the Republic (MDR), which won six seats, it obtained a parliamentary majority. Biya subsequently won the
October 1992 presidential election with about 40% of the vote, ahead of
John Fru Ndi of the
Social Democratic Front (SDF), who won about 36%. (it initially won 109 seats, but it subsequently won in the three constituencies where the election was held over again in August, gaining seven more seats In the
presidential election held on 11 October 2004, Biya won 70.9% of the vote. The CPDM won 140 out of the 163 initially declared seats in the
July 2007 parliamentary election, and it won another 13 seats (out of 17 at stake) in constituencies where the vote was held over again in September, thus winning a total of 153 seats. ==Congresses==