Polls have opened in Cameroon in an election that could see the world’s oldest serving head of state extend his rule for another seven years.
The single-round election on Sunday is likely to return 92-year-old incumbent Paul Biya as president for an eighth term in the Central African nation of 30 million people.
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Biya, in power for 43 years, faces off against 11 challengers, including former government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary, 79, who has generated unexpected momentum for a campaign calling for an end to the leader’s decades-long tenure.
Bakary – a close ally of Biya for 20 years, who resigned from the government in June to join the opposition – is considered the top contender to unseat the incumbent after another leading opponent, Maurice Kamto, was barred from the race.
But analysts predict Biya’s re-election, given his firm grip on state machinery and a divided opposition.
‘Divide to rule’
“We shouldn’t be naive. We know full well the ruling system has ample means at its disposal to get results in its favour,” Cameroonian political scientist Stephane Akoa told the AFP news agency, while noting that the campaign had been “much livelier” in recent days than previous versions.
“This poll is therefore more likely to throw up surprises,” he said.
Francois Conradie, lead political economist at Oxford Economics, told the Reuters news agency that while “a surprise is still possible”, “a divided opposition and the backing of a formidable electoral machine will, we predict, give the 92-year-old his eighth term”.
“Biya has remained in power for nearly 43 years by deftly dividing his adversaries, and, although we think he isn’t very aware of what is going on, it seems that the machine he built will divide to rule one last time,” Conradie said.
Biya – who has won every election in the past 20 years by more than 70 percent of the ballot – ran a characteristically low-profile campaign, appearing in public only on Tuesday for the first time since May, AFP reported.
His sole rally in Maroua, the regional capital of the strategic Far North region, drew a crowd of just a few hundred people, far smaller than a rally in the same city by Bakary this week, which drew thousands, AFP said.
‘We want change’
Cameroon is Central Africa’s most diversified economy and a significant producer of oil and cocoa.
But voters in a country where about four people in 10 live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank, complain about the high cost of living, high unemployment and a lack of clean water, healthcare and quality education.
“For 43 years, Cameroonians have been suffering. There are no jobs,” Hassane Djbril, a driver in the capital, Yaounde, told Reuters.
He said he planned to vote for Bakary. “We want change because the current government is dictatorial.”
Herves Mitterand, a mechanic in Douala, told Reuters that he wanted to see change.
“For me, things have only gotten worse,” he said. “We want to see that change, we want to see it actually happen. We don’t want to just keep hearing words any more.”
The vote takes place in the shadow of a conflict between separatist forces and the government that has plagued the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions since 2016.
