World’s oldest president re-elected in disputed Cameroon vote

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Cameroon’s president claimed yet another electoral victory on Monday, giving the world’s oldest leader seven more years in office and triggering nationwide protests by demonstrators convinced the election was stolen.

Paul Biya, 92, who has ruled the central African oil exporter of 30mn people since 1982, was declared the winner of presidential elections with 53.7 per cent of the vote.

Opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma Bakary, an influential powerbroker from the country’s north and a former Biya ally, received 35.2 per cent of the vote, according to the official count. Tchiroma last week pre-empted the electoral body by declaring that he had won a landslide in the October 12 polls.

Video footage that circulated on Monday showed what appeared to be the sound of gunfire from near Tchiroma’s white-walled compound in Garoua, a city in the north, as supporters camped out to protect the opposition leader against what they feared could be his arrest.

There were also reports of protesters attacking the main prison in Douala, the commercial capital, and of armoured personnel carriers patrolling some cities. Large numbers of security forces have been deployed in the capital Yaoundé.

More than 20 leading members of the opposition have been arrested, and security forces killed at least four people on Sunday.

One political veteran, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the volatility of the situation, said no one believed the official results and that the protests represented the biggest challenge to the authority of Biya, who will be nearly 100 years old if he sees out his eighth term.

Tchiroma worked under Biya for two decades, holding cabinet positions including as the government’s spin-doctor, before breaking with the longtime leader in June. The 79-year-old said he was responding to yearning for change from youth in a country with a median age of 18.

“Biya now has a notably shaky mandate given many of his own citizens don’t believe he won the election,’’ Murithi Mutiga, Africa programme director at International Crisis Group said. He called on Biya to start urgent mediation with politicians, faith leaders and external actors to prevent an escalation of violence.

Ambassadors from several EU member states and other western countries boycotted the announcement at the Yaoundé Conference Centre. Envoys from Russia and Turkey attended.

The Constitutional Council had set the stage for the announcement by rejecting petitions filed before it last week relating to alleged voter intimidation, ballot-stuffing and other forms of electoral malpractice.

Tchiroma alleged on Sunday he had escaped a plot to arrest him. “The only crime I committed was winning the presidential election,” he said in a video posted online, calling on his supporters to “remain vigilant”.

In the aftermath of the vote, as behind the scenes negotiations intensified, Biya’s camp had offered Tchiroma the role of prime minister, according to people familiar with the matter. Tchiroma rejected the offer last week, the people said. Cameroon’s prime minister ostensibly runs the government, but power remains concentrated within Biya’s office.

The unrest in Cameroon comes as another ageing incumbent in the region was on the verge of winning a controversial vote.

Ivory Coast’s Alassane Ouattara, 83, was on course for a fourth term after running virtually unopposed, according to early results from the country’s electoral commission. His main rivals, including former Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam and former President Laurent Gbagbo, were excluded from the polls by court decisions they alleged were politically motivated.

Ouattara, who has been in power since 2011, ran for office despite his country’s two-term limits for presidents, after arguing that a constitutional amendment in 2016 reset the clock on his tenure. The election was largely peaceful, although it was marred by voter apathy and there were reports of isolated incidents of violence.