Paul Biya has barely made a public appearance on the campaign trail in his bid for an eighth term as president of Cameroon aged 92 and after more than four decades in power.While the 11 rival candidates crisscrossed the central African country pressing the flesh ahead of the October 12 vote, Biya’s campaign has been largely virtual, true to his reputation as a secretive “sphinx”. The world’s oldest head of state launched his re-election campaign on September 27 with a social media video that critics say was filled with images generated by artificial intelligence. Daily posts on his X account feature old photos of himself and rehashed quotes. But, with five days to go, he made his first campaign appearance in Maroua in the Far North region, long considered a Biya stronghold but where several former allies from the area are now running 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 Yaounde 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 percent 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 -Biya put into practice the adage of divide and rule to stay at the top, Cameroonian political scientist Stephane Akoa said. “If you try to go against Biya, you’ll be crushed,” said Titus Edzoa, a former chief Biya aide, who resigned to challenge his boss for the presidency.He was arrested, accused of theft and spent 17 years behind bars. Under Biya, Cameroon has struggled with security.The far north has endured attacks blamed on Boko Haram jihadists and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) since 2009. Since the end of 2016, a deadly conflict has pitted pro-independence armed groups in the English-speaking west against security forces, with each side regularly accused of crimes against civilians. That conflict broke out after Biya violently repressed peaceful demonstrations by the Anglophone minority.
