Cameroon goes to the polls as Biya seeks to extend 36-year rule

YAOUNDE (Reuters) – Cameroonians will go to the polls on Sunday as part of elections supposed to extend President Paul Biya's 36-year term and confirm his place among the last African leaders for several decades.

A win for Biya, who has been leading the country since 1982, would inaugurate a seventh term for the 85-year-old and would see him stay for at least 92 years, countering a timid trend in Africa where many countries have places limits on the presidential term. . Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, from Equatorial Guinea, is the only African president to have ruled longer.

It would maintain a long-standing status quo in this Central African cocoa and oil producing country where, despite the relative economic stability and growth of over 4% per annum since the last Biya election in 2011, good many of its 24 million inhabitants live in extreme poverty. Most have only known one president.

A secessionist uprising in the English-speaking regions of the Northwest and Southwest has claimed the lives of hundreds of people and forced thousands to flee either to the Francophone region or to neighboring Nigeria. There are still ghost towns, where the few who remain are afraid to go out and vote.

Some opposition parties have joined forces to strengthen support and dispel dissatisfaction with the country's ruined infrastructure and with Biya, which they say has dominated Cameroon for too long. The president spends years without convening cabinet meetings and spends long periods outside the country with his wife Chantal, most of the time on holiday in Switzerland.

"There are many problems. There are no roads, no hospitals. We are poor Biya has to leave, "said Saturday Emmanuel Bassong, a 31-year-old businessman, at an opposition rally in the capital, Yaounde.

Chances and history are against the opposition, including the main candidate, Joshua Osih of the Social Democratic Front. In 2011, Biya had obtained 78% of the vote in a qualified "irregular" and "irregular" election by the US state department.

The African Union and other organizations are monitoring Sunday's vote, but opposition candidates have already complained about efforts to make elections favorable to Biya.

Biya's advantage on his land is evident in the lush green capital, where thousands of posters lined up along the side of the road and hung on the flank of skyscrapers declare the "strength of the experience" of the holder . The tailors sell fabrics with Biya's face that they transform into dresses and costumes that are seen everywhere in the city.

The billboards announcing other candidates are almost completely absent.

Government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary said on Saturday that the opposition posed a threat to Biya.

"The probability of his victory is beyond a reasonable doubt. I am convinced that the game is already over, "he said.

The separatists pledged to prevent polls from taking place in English-speaking areas, home to 5 million people, about one-fifth of the population. Residents of these areas told Reuters that they would not vote anyway because of insecurity.

The crisis highlights a central problem of the Biya regime: its long attempt to centralize an extremely diverse population in a country founded in 1961 on the promise of federalism and autonomy of its regions.

In 2016, Anglophone lawyers and teachers protested the marginalization of minority Anglophones in their professions. Severe government repression, in which unarmed civilians were shot dead, radicalized many people. Armed groups have formed in the lush forests of the west.

Biya did not visit English speaking areas during his campaign.

The separatists promised to prevent the holding of elections on Sunday and blocked the main highways. Spokesman Bakary said the separatists were "dreaming" that they thought they could stop the polls and that the government had put in place measures to secure their future.

Military vehicles were stationed Friday in the northwestern city of Bamenda, residents said, and the shops and banks are closed.

"The streets are empty. I do not think I'm going to vote, "said one of the locals. Since I started voting in 1997, the elections have not changed anything. "