The last time translation caught any attention during an election in Cameroon is in 2018 during the presidential electionn. In fact, a campaign slogan translation stirred intellectual passions. ”The Force of Experience”—the official English translation of the then incumbent’s campaign slogan—threw Cameroon translators and other observers into fits of unending debate about semantics and about accuracy. The bone of contention was whether this English translation appropriately conveyed the message in ”La force de l’expérience.” One school of thought was for “The Strength of Experience” while the other school of thought was “The Force of Experience.” Although it is hard to say who won this intellectual debate, it was however interesting to see translation inadvertently share the spotlight in a moment when other topics make for interesting popular conversation. Against the backdrop of this precedent, scrutiny of the quality and quantity of translation during the October 2025 presidential election is therefore interesting, and even necessary, some might add.
Translation and the October 2025 presidential election
The 2025 presidential election took place amid high expectations for change. It involved 12 candidates; the sitting president inclusive. Many candidates made a conscious effort to communicate in English and French, Cameroon’s official languages. This effort involved translation; two forms predominantly: text translations and subtitling. The main languages involved were English and French although some candidates went the extra mile to make their content available in indigenous languages. One such candidate was Mr. Joshua Osih whose social media campaign videos are available in Fulfulde; an indigenous language widely spoken in the northern regions of Cameroon. To onlookers, this picture could suggest that political parties and their corresponding candidates mainstreamed translation during this election. Close scrutiny reveals the contrary, as well as the unrelenting issues of quantity and quality, which have always haunted translation practice in Cameroon.
The Quantity of Translation
Numbers enable you gauge the scale. Out of the 12 candidates, only 07 had more or less bilingual websites. Two others—Mr. Akere Muna, Mme Hermine Patricia Tomaïno Ndam Njoya — had erratically bilingual websites, with some generic tabs translated and available in English and French while core features stayed monolingual. This was especially the case with candidate Hermine Patricia Tomaïno Ndam Njoya: her declaration of candidacy for the election was available only in French on her party’s website. For candidate Matomba Serge Espoir, his website was available only in French although his programme was available in both French and English. Other candidates didn’t bother with full-fledged or half hearted bilingualism. They went “mono”—not solo— as their websites were in French only. This was the case with Kwemo Pierre and Dr. Jacques Bouhga Hagbe. Maybe running monolingual, translationless campaigns was a strategy; a statement about who they consider important and part of their electorate. Maybe just maybe. But this would have been a flawed strategy in as much as translation would have helped them meet the constitutional and community expectations tied to the seat they hoped to win and the country they would have had to govern had they won. Ultimately, these translationless campaigns could be indicators of candidates’ lack of credibility or seriousness, lending credence to allegations that such candidates were just dummy candidates greenlighted to populate the field of candidates and as such endow the election with a semblance of democratic vitality.
The Quality of Translation
Now the task of analysing the quality of these translations was a little more challenging and demanded analysis of sample translations culled from various campaigns, party/candidate websites and general campaign messages. The quality of campaign slogans was generally good. That of candidate Issa Tchiroma caught the attention of some communications and translation professionals given how idiomatic it was. The slogan “le peuple au pouvoir” was beautifully rendered in English as “We are the power,” the translator presumably drawing from the verbal culture of the American civil rights activism. Semantic glitches however were found in the campaign slogan translation of candidate Cabral Libii. “Succeed Together” for “Réussir ensemble” was good but could have been better if the “Succeed” was upgraded to “Succeeding…” to give the slogan a timeless relevance, as is often the case in advertising.
The translation of party/candidate website information was generally good though close analysis revealed some old issues. There was an instance of outright mistranslation on the website of the Cameroon National Salvation Front the party of main opposition challenger, Mr. Issa Tchiroma. Here, “Quelques élus” was translated as “the chosen ones,” implying a complete misunderstanding of the source text message. Terminology issues were also found as the website contained two different translations for the party name : Front pour le salut national du Cameroun (FSNC) was translated both as “Cameroon National Salvation Front” and “Front for the National Salvation of Cameroon”. The quality was wanting even in general campaign messages. This was the case in the Letter to the People from 38-year-old candidate, Hiram Iyodi where “Chères Camerounaises, chers Camerounais” was translated “...Dear Cameroonians (female), dear Cameroonians (male)...” This case was quite unique because it left an impression of blind machine translation given how the French language tradition of acknowledging both genders was unnaturally captured in the English translation with the use of gender specifiers.
Therefore…
Given the context, we can therefore wonder who would have won if translation was the lone campaign issue. Generally speaking, Joshua Osih would be the answer given the general quality of the translations around his campaign and number of languages in which he formally made his message available. Away from this hypothetical scenario, we must take these translation issues for what they really are: an indication that translation has not yet seeped into the agenda of Cameroon politicians, both young and old. In other words, few politicians construe translation as a rights issue that can be solved through practice, policy and enforcement. In a constitutionally bilingual country, this is most unfortunate !
