Carpet Crossing in Cameroon Political Landscape (1953-2020): Reasons and Impact

The paper examines causes of carpet crossing and its impact on the political growth of politicians in Cameroon. It argues that the tendency of carpet crossing in Cameroon is mostly the manipulation of grass root militants by top leaders of political parties, as well as the political imagination of militants with high aspirations. Therefore, many were carried away either by empty promises of political leaders from other parties or due to their own selfish political interests. The carpet crossing was first common in the former British Southern Cameroons which later spread to the whole country after reintroduction of multiparty politics in 1990. The advent of democracy and multi-party politics in Cameroon made overzealous politicians to abuse their political rights. This has been very evident in the political space because no limit of the number of political parties was shrined in the country’s constitution. Since over 253 political parties existed, they were excited either to move from one political party to another or even to create theirs. This phenomenon caused most of them to remain “baby politicians†for a long time because they never bothered about their political career. In the face this, the political landscape of Cameroon was negatively affected. Our findings reveal three central issues about carpet crossing in Cameroon. That carpet crossing occurred due to lack of sincere political will among politicians, weak democratic institutions and the absence of a strong political competition The paper concludes that if Cameroonian politicians were faithful and the electoral system in Cameroon is improved upon, the rate of carpet crossing would reduce tremendously