Amid Opposition Protests, Cameroon’s Paul Biya Re-elected at 92

•World’s oldest president wins 53.6% of votes  

•Set to hit 100 years at the end of new tenure

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, the world’s oldest serving ruler, secured an eighth term in office yesterday vote results showed, as the main opposition challenger who has also claimed victory reported gunfire near his home.

Biya, 92, won 53.66 per cent of the vote, against 35.19 per cent for his former ally, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, the Constitutional Council said. A new seven-year term could keep the veteran leader in power until he is nearly 100.

Opposition protesters have clashed with security forces repeatedly over the past week after partial results suggested Biya was on course to win the October 12 vote. There was no immediate comment on the result from the government, which has rejected opposition accusations of irregularities, a Reuters report said.

After the results were announced, Tchiroma wrote on Facebook that two people were killed after shots were fired at civilians outside his home in the northern city of Garoua.

He did not say who had fired the shots or comment directly on the election result. Reuters could not confirm his account independently. Last week he said he had won the election and would not accept any other result.

The result raised the prospect of more confrontations between opposition supporters and security forces, a day after at least four people died in clashes in Cameroon’s commercial capital Douala .

“We expect unrest to escalate as Cameroonians widely reject the official result, and we cannot see the Biya government lasting much longer,” said Francois Conradie, lead political economist at Oxford Economics.

“Biya now has a notably shaky mandate given that many of his own citizens don’t believe he won the election,” Murithi Mutiga, Africa Programme Director at the International Crisis Group, told Reuters.

“We call on Biya to urgently initiate a national mediation to prevent further escalation,” Mutiga added.

Biya, 92, took office in 1982 and has held a tight grip on power ever since, doing away with the presidential term limit in 2008 and winning reelection by comfortable margins.

“ (I) hereby declare elected President of the Republic, having obtained the majority of the votes cast, the candidate, Biya, Paul,” Clement Atangana, President of the Constitutional Council, said.

Tchiroma is a former government spokesperson and employment minister in his late 70s who broke ranks with Biya earlier this year.

He mounted a campaign that drew large crowds and endorsements from a coalition of opposition parties and civic groups.

Biya extended his more than four-decade rule, securing an eighth term in Cameroon’s presidential poll, with Tchiroma quickly denouncing the announcement of Biya’s win, saying  “there was no election; it was rather a masquerade. We won unequivocally”.

Tchiroma had claimed victory against the incumbent two days after the October 12 election, and called for demonstrations.

A rally outside his home in the northern city of Garoua turned deadly, he told AFP Monday, adding that two protesters were killed while some 10 snipers were posted on rooftops. An AFP reporter on the ground saw one man shot, but AFP could not verify whether he died.

On Sunday, four people were killed in clashes between security forces and supporters of the opposition in the economic capital Douala, according to the region’s governor. Security forces initially used tear gas before firing “live ammunition”, protesters said.

Voter turnout stood at 46.3 percent, according to the official results announced 15 days after the election. Cabral Libii came in third place with 3.4 per cent, followed by Bello Bouba Maigari with 2.5 percent, and Hermine Patricia Tomaino Ndam Njoya, the only woman candidate, with 1.7 per cent. The other eight candidates each received less than one percent of the vote.

Public gatherings have been banned and traffic restricted in most major cities in the country since polling day. But since last week, supporters of Tchiroma have taken to the streets to defend his claim of victory.

Citing his own tally, he claimed to have won 54.8 percent of the votes against 31.3 per cent for Biya.

From the early hours of Monday morning, police and security officials were stationed at major intersections and sensitive sites across the capital Yaounde. Police said they intended to “ensure the security of the electoral process and prevent any unrest”.

Many shops and gas stations were shuttered for fear of clashes, while traffic remained unusually light. Most analysts expected Biya to secure another seven-year term in a system that critics say is rigged.

Biya is only the second person to lead Cameroon since independence from France in 1960. He has ruled with an iron fist, repressing all political and armed opposition, and holding onto power in the face of social upheaval, economic inequality and separatist violence.

Tchiroma’s election manifesto promised a transition period of three to five years to rebuild the country, which he said Biya had destroyed, AFP said.