Category Archives: Cameroon

With Cameroonian leader Paul Biya widely tipped for re-election in polls scheduled for October, the burning question now for many observers of the central African state is: Who will succeed him? Biya, 78, has ruled the oil-exporting nation for 29 years, making him among Africa’s longest rulers. After a constitutional tweak in 2008 which removed term limits, he is set to run again in what, given his age, is potentially his last seven-year term. Some are even drawing parallels with Ivory Coast, where the 1993 death of leader Felix Houphouet-Boigny created a power vacuum that led to a 2002-2003 civil war and political impasse only resolved last month with the … Continue reading →

Cameroon’s opposition parties have called the move to strip the country’s electoral body of the right to announce provisional results in future elections a ‘foul game’ by the country’s leader Paul Biya to ‘steal another term’. The ruling was made by parliament after the government proposed the change in light of the violent post-election crisis in Ivory Coast, where electoral commission results showing now ex-president Laurent Gbagbo lost were quickly reversed by the country’s highest court. Cameroon’s new law gives the Constitutional Council exclusive power to release results from future elections, stripping the electoral body ELECAM of the right to issue partial and provision numbers as ballots are counted. “We … Continue reading →