Cameroon’s Paul Biya, already the world’s oldest head of state, is the favourite to win Sunday’s presidential election, handing him an eighth term in power in the central African country.
A fractured opposition of 11 candidates is standing against the 92-year-old in the vote, whose credibility and fairness rights groups have called into question.
Most of the 7.8 million Cameroonians called to the ballot box can remember no leader other than Biya, who has held onto power with an iron fist since 1982.
Questions over the state of his health have only grown louder since he entered his 10th decade. Should Biya win, he would be nearly 100 by the end of his eighth term.
Though the opposition hopes to entice voters with promises of a new face and an end to the cost-of-living frustrations of the long Biya epoch, its most credible candidate, Maurice Kamto, had his candidacy barred by the courts.
Theophile, an artist in the economic capital Douala, branded the vote a “scam”.
The 24-year-old had hoped to vote for Kamto, who came second to Biya in the 2018 election.
“As long as the system remains in place, there is nothing that can be done. There has to be a change,” he told AFP.
Others value the veteran’s decades of experience in a country where half the population is under the age of 20.
“I say Paul Biya still has something to offer,” said Giovanni, a 20-year-old student in Douala.
“Even though some of his promises haven’t been kept, I’m counting on him. He’s a wise man with a wealth of experience and a long track record.”
– ‘Determination intact’ –
The longtime president was noticeably absent from the campaign trail.
He had taken a trip this month to Switzerland, his favoured destination for overseas jaunts, fuelling fresh speculation over the state of his health.
But he made a rare outing on Tuesday, holding a rally at a stadium in the town of Maroua in the Far North region, a key electoral battleground with 1.2 million registered voters.
It was his first public appearance since May.
“My determination to serve you remains intact,” he told the crowd in a 25-minute speech, which touched on youth, women and infrastructure.
Though his entourage expected nearly 25,000 people at the event, AFP reporters present estimated only a few hundred showed up.
Biya became Cameroon’s second president since independence in the 1960s in the 1984 election, when he ran unopposed and won 100 per cent of the vote.
He had already taken over two years earlier when his predecessor Ahmadou Ahidjo resigned suddenly.
He was re-elected in similar style in 1988 but after the introduction of multi-party politics only narrowly overcame challenger John Fru Ndi in 1992 by a four-per cent margin.
