On Monday, October 27, Paul Biya extended his 43-year rule by securing an eighth term as the president of Cameroon, despite making minimal public appearances during the campaign. The country’s Constitutional Council announced that the 92-year-old won 53.7% of the vote, defeating his closest rival, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who received 35.2%.
While the 11 other candidates actively campaigned across the Central African nation, Biya’s campaign was primarily conducted online, reflecting his reputation as a secretive figure often referred to as a “sphinx.” He launched his re-election campaign on September 27 with a social media video that critics claimed featured images generated by artificial intelligence. His daily posts on X (formerly Twitter) included old photos and repeated quotes from his past.
President Paul Biya’s health is on everyone’s mind, but no one is allowed to talk about it. 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.
The Biya system
His frequent trips abroad for medical treatment and holidays at a luxury hotel in Geneva have sparked accusations that he spends vast amounts of public money on himself and his entourage. In 2018, an international consortium of investigative journalists (OCCRP) estimated his trips had cost Cameroonians a total of $65 million.
Biya survived a coup attempt in 1984 which deeply troubled him, a security official in Yaoundé said. Unscripted public appearances thereafter became a rarity and crowds were kept at a distance when Biya’s motorcade passed through the capital’s streets. His detractors accuse him of ruling from his native village of Mvomekaa, in the south. Even from afar, Biya succeeds in closely controlling his ministers and entourage. His succession is a taboo subject.
After the fall of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe in 2017, Biya became Africa’s oldest president and its longest serving after Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who seized power in 1979.
He initially trained to become a Catholic priest before studying political science in Paris. Biya rose through the ranks under his predecessor, Ahmadou Ahidjo, to become prime minister from 1975 to 1982, before taking over as president when Ahidjo suddenly resigned.
He was elected with 100% of the vote in 1984, when he was the only candidate, and re-elected in 1988. Since the introduction of a multi-party system in 1990, he has won another five consecutive terms outright.
He has appointed loyalists to key posts, including parliamentary speaker, army chief and the head of the state-run oil and gas company. Even his inner circle has been intimidated by his strategy of entrusting command of the army to his closest associates and giving Israeli operatives the job of training elite troops and his personal security detail.
Divide and rule
Political scientist Stéphane Akoa has noted that President Biya employs the strategy of “divide and rule” to maintain his grip on power. Titus Edzoa, a former chief aide to Biya who resigned to run for the presidency, stated, “If you try to go against Biya, you’ll be crushed.” Edzoa was arrested and accused of theft, leading to a 17-year prison sentence.
Under Biya’s leadership, Cameroon has faced significant security challenges. Since 2009, the far north of the country has experienced attacks attributed to Boko Haram and the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP). Additionally, since late 2016, a violent conflict has erupted between pro-independence armed groups in the English-speaking regions and government security forces. Both sides have been accused of committing crimes against civilians. This conflict was sparked by Biya’s violent repression of peaceful demonstrations organized by the Anglophone minority.
Source: Lemonde.fr
