Cameroon’s 92-year-old President Paul Biya has been re-elected for an eighth consecutive term, further consolidating his grip on power after more than four decades at the helm. The official result of 53.7% was met with disappointment by the opposition and citizens who had hoped for change. His style of governance – closed, restrained and distant – has created uncertainty about the real direction of the country. Meanwhile, internal crises, particularly in the English-speaking Regions, are deepening questions about Cameroon’s political future and the people’s patience with Biya’s regime.
To no one’s surprise, Cameroon’s Constitutional Council has declared the re-election of 92-year-old President Paul Biya, the world’s oldest head of state, for an eighth consecutive term. Amid rumors of a close result and claims of victory by his main challenger, former minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary, emotions and tensions had been running high in the days leading up to the announcement of the election results. For a few moments, hopes were sparked for a different outcome than usual. As a result, although part of a long-term pattern, the official result – Biya’s victory with 53.7%, ahead of Tchiroma Bakary’s 35.2% – was met with disappointment and a sense of emptiness by many Cameroonians. Biya’s decision to run for another seven-year term, after 43 years in power, was undoubtedly controversial. Not only because of his long tenure at the head of state, but also because of his style of governance.
Long stays abroad, usually at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva or other more secretive locations near the Swiss lakes, have often fueled speculation about the extent to which he actually runs Cameroon – or whether key decisions are made by the prime minister, ministers, or the influential secretary-general of the presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.
Last year, after giving a speech in France at a World War II commemoration ceremony in August and attending a China-Africa summit in Beijing the following month, the president disappeared from the public scene for nearly six weeks without any announcement or explanation, sparking speculation about his health. Although senior officials later said he was once again in Geneva and working as usual, there was no clear news until the announcement of his return to the capital, Yaounde, where he was filmed being welcomed by supporters. This year, it was no great surprise when he made another pre-election visit to Geneva, just weeks before polling day.
BIYA’S LEADERSHIP
Biya’s style of governing is secretive and opaque – he rarely calls full cabinet meetings or speaks publicly on complex issues. Biya creates a fog of uncertainty about the administration’s intentions and how government policy is formed. On the technical side, ministers and officials are developing a range of initiatives and programs. But political vision and a sense of direction have been conspicuously absent. His regime has shown itself to be willing at times to suppress protests or arrest its most vocal critics. But that is not the only – and perhaps not the most important – reason that has kept him in power.
Because it must be acknowledged that Biya has also played a special political role. He has served as a balancing figure in a complex country, with great social, Regional and linguistic differences – for example, between the equatorial south and the savannah north, or between the francophone majority and the English-speaking Regions in the northwest and southwest, which have different educational and institutional traditions.
In a country that in the early years after independence faced debates over federalism and how to build national unity, he has formed governments that include representatives from different classes and Regions. Although sometimes under pressure from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and international creditors, his administrations have managed to avoid a debt catastrophe and, in recent years, gradually consolidate the national finances. Moreover, over the past decade, Biya has increasingly emerged as a constitutional monarch, a symbolic figure who makes some key decisions but leaves the direction of day-to-day policy to others.
His continuation in this role has been made possible by internal rivalries among senior figures within the ruling party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM). As long as Biya remains in power, the question of succession does not need to be resolved – his presence forever postpones the decision on who will come after him.
However, with no clear heir or political favorite, and with some of the once-called “young generation” figures within the CPDM now themselves aging, Biya’s stay in power has fueled constant speculation about his successor. His son, Franck, is increasingly mentioned, even though he himself has shown little interest in politics or governance. Meanwhile, the president faces a series of development and security challenges, despite Cameroon’s vast natural wealth. Is it possible that we are now witnessing a visible erosion of popular patience with Biya’s version of semi-authoritarian but quiet and self-contained rule? Are Cameroonians tired of a system that offers them multi-party elections but little hope of real change in their governance? Has the bloody crisis in the English-speaking Regions exposed the limits of the president’s cautious and distant approach?
When protests for reform first erupted in those Regions in 2016, Biya was slow to react. By the time he proposed significant changes and a national dialogue, violence had already erupted and the space for real compromise had narrowed. At the same time, with his overly restrained style, he never managed to offer a clear vision for Cameroon’s economic and social development, nor to awaken in citizens a sense of moving forward towards a common goal.
PATIENCE “THE BORDER”
Biya had already tested the patience of the people with his decision to run for a seventh consecutive term in 2018. But in the end, he managed to withstand a strong challenge from the opposition, led by Maurice Kamto, the leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM), and when Kamto challenged the official results that gave him only 14% of the vote, he was arrested and held for more than eight months in prison. This time, however, Tchiroma’s candidacy significantly changed the atmosphere and sense of political possibility, in a way that no other challenger had achieved before – at least since 1992, when even the official results gave John Fru Ndi of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) 36% of the vote, just short of Biya’s 40%.
And this time it’s not just that Biya is seven years older and even less active than before. Unlike Kamto – who struggled to break through beyond his traditional constituency – Tchiroma, a Muslim from the north, has drawn support from different sections of society and from different Regions of Cameroon, including the two English-speaking Regions.
This former political prisoner, who later agreed to cooperate with Biya and took a ministerial post, had the courage to go to Bamenda, the largest English-speaking city, and apologize for his role in the government’s actions. In recent days, as tensions rose ahead of the results, Tchiroma remained in Garoua, his hometown in the north, where large crowds of young supporters had gathered to protect him from the risk of arrest by security forces. Now, after expectations had grown so high, there is deep disappointment and anger among the opposition at the official result, however predictable it may have been. Reports from the ground indicate that security forces have fired on protesters in Douala, the southern city that is also the country’s economic center. Meanwhile, shootings have also been reported from Garoua.
For Cameroon, Biya’s determination to secure an eighth presidential term has brought great risks and painful costs. (BBC)