Cameroon’s veteran leader Paul Biya wins controversial eighth term
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AFP)—Paul Biya on Monday extended his 43-year rule, securing an eighth term as president of Cameroon after barely making a public appearance on the campaign trail.
The country’s Constitutional Council announced Monday that the 92-year-old won 53.7 percent of the vote, beating rival Issa Tchiroma Bakary who came in second with 35.2 percent.
While the 11 rival candidates crisscrossed the central African country pressing the flesh ahead of the October 12 vote, Biya’s campaign was largely virtual, true to his reputation as a secretive “sphinx”.
The world’s oldest head of state launched his re-election campaign on September 27 with a social media video that critics say was filled with images generated by artificial intelligence.
Daily posts on his X account feature old photos of himself and rehashed quotes.
He made his first campaign appearance very late in the election run-up in Maroua in the Far North region, long considered a Biya stronghold but where several former allies ran against him.
When Biya first became president in 1982, US president Ronald Reagan’s era was in full swing and the Cold War had nearly a decade to run.
Cameroon’s second president since independence from France in 1960, Biya has ruled with an iron fist, personally appointing and dismissing key officials and ruthlessly repressing all political and armed opposition.
Long respected and active on the diplomatic scene, his leadership has earned him criticism from the United Nations and Western capitals in recent years.
Despite frequent absences and consistent rumours about fragile health, he has succeeded in holding onto power through social upheaval, economic disparity and separatist violence.
“All you have to do is lose your head for a second and you’re done with,” Biya once told a journalist.
Since 2018 when the opposition claimed election fraud, Biya has limited public appearances to rare televised speeches recorded in advance as well as clips of family celebrations with his flamboyant wife, Chantal, and his three children.
