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YAOUNDE, Cameroon – Cameroonian President Paul Biya has been re-elected for a seventh term following a disputed poll, the country's Constitutional Council announced on Monday, granting the octogenarian mandate the mandate to extend his reign for a fourth decade .
The 85-year-old president won 71% of the vote, far ahead of his closest rival, Maurice Kamto, who won 14%, according to the official count. The opposition rejected the results, citing widespread fraud and systematic tampering. The European Union did not send observers as planned, citing a lack of resources. Monday's announcement put an end to tensions in the coffee and oil-producing Central African country, where Kamto won on the basis of his own polls.
The US State Department said the elections marked an improvement over the 2011 poll, widely criticized, but were still marked by a "number of irregularities".
Opposition candidates had filed 18 petitions over the past 18 days to quash the October 7 poll. The constitutional court rejected them all. Demonstrations erupted in the two largest cities of Douala and Yaoundé after the council dismissed the complaints during a three-day hearing. On Monday, thousands of soldiers supported by armored personnel carriers maintained a strong presence in the capital to thwart demonstrations.
The long-awaited victory of this landslide has allowed Biya, who has been in power since 1982, to strengthen his position as one of the world's oldest leaders, even as the group of African strongmen continues. to be resorbed. After Zimbabwean Zimbabwean Robert Mugabe and José Eduardo dos Santos left Angola, only Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea has been in power for longer. But in a country plunged into an insurgency raging against Islamist militants from the north and armed separatists from the south-west, there is reason to fear that Mr. Biya's long reign remains a major risk to stability.
"Biya pitilessly crushed anyone who seemed to him to be a potential political challenger," said Francois Conradie, head of research at NKC African Economics, based in South Africa. "The main risk is that of his sudden death: he is old and sick … there is no succession plan."
The polls were conducted in a climate of insecurity. An armed uprising that escalated two years ago devastated the English-speaking regions of western Cameroon, displacing more than 250,000 people and reducing voter turnout.
The violence, which erupted after English-speaking regions claimed decades of discrimination from the French-speaking government, claimed the lives of more than 400 people, including 120 government troops. The clashes may destabilize the country and could last for years, according to rights groups and analysts.
"The October election crisis is the worst of the last 25 years," said Richard Moncrieff, project director of International Crisis Group for Central Africa. "This has added new risks in a country already on the brink of civil war because of the Anglophone crisis."
Write to Nicholas Bariyo at [email protected]
