Paul Biya, the leader who never loses

To no one’s surprise, Cameroon’s Constitutional Council declared the re-election of 92-year-old President Paul Biya, the world’s oldest head of state, to an eighth consecutive term.

Excitement and tension were building as we approached Monday’s announcement, amid rumors of a close result and claims of victory by his main rival, former government minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary.

The official result, Biya’s victory with 53.7% ahead of Tchiroma Bakary with 35.2%, was both a shock and an anti-climax for many Cameroonians.

Biya’s decision to remain in office for another seven years after 43 years in power was inevitably controversial. Not only because of his long life in power, but also because his management style raises questions.

Extended stays abroad, often at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva or alternative more secretive locations around the Swiss lakeside city, have repeatedly triggered speculation about the extent to which he actually rules Cameroon or whether most decisions are actually taken by the prime minister and ministers or by the influential secretary-general of the presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

Last year, after speaking at a World War II commemoration ceremony in southern France in August and attending the China Africa summit in Beijing the next month, the president disappeared without notice or explanation for almost six weeks. It sparked speculation about his health.

Even after senior officials reported that he was once again in Geneva and working as usual, there was no real news until his impending return home to the capital Yaoundé, where he was filmed being greeted by supporters, was announced.

And it came as little surprise that this year, just a few weeks before election day, he added another pre-election visit to Geneva to his schedule.

Biya’s inscrutable national leadership style, rarely holding formal meetings of the entire cabinet or addressing complex issues publicly, leaves a cloud of uncertainty over the goals of his administration and the formation of government policy.

At the technical level, capable ministers and officials pursue a wide range of initiatives and programs. But political vision and sense of direction have largely disappeared.

His regime has occasionally shown a willingness to suppress protests or detain those who are more vocally critical. But this is not the only, or perhaps even the most important, factor keeping him in power.

Because it should also be said that Biya also took on a unique political role.

He acted as a balancing figure in a complex country with great social, regional and linguistic differences – for example, between the equatorial south and the northern savannah, or between the majority of the French-speaking and English-speaking North-West and South-West regions with their different educational and institutional traditions.

It brought together governments with representatives from a wide range of backgrounds in a state whose early post-independence years were marked by debates over federalism and tensions over the form that national unity should take.

Although sometimes under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and international creditors, their administration has averted debt disaster and gradually consolidated national finances in recent years.

Moreover, over the past decade Biya has come to resemble almost a constitutional monarchy, a symbolic figure who can decide on a few key issues but leaves it to others to chart the course in most policy areas.

And his retention of that post was facilitated by the competitive rivalry between senior figures of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM). With him there, there is no need to determine the successor.

However, with no designated or preferred political heir, and with some once “new generation” CPDM figures now rising over the years, Biya’s stay in office has fueled an ever-spinning rumor mill about the succession.

His son Franck’s name is increasingly mentioned, although he shows little interest in politics or government.

Meanwhile, despite Cameroon’s rich diversity of natural resources, there is no shortage of development or security challenges for the President.

Is it possible that today we will see a definitive erosion of popular tolerance for Biya’s self-effacing version of semi-authoritarian rule?

Are Cameroonians fed up with a system that gives them multi-party elections but little hope of actually changing its rulers?

to have Bloody crisis in English-speaking regions Have the limits of the President’s cautious and distant approach been revealed?

When protests demanding reform first broke out here in 2016, Biya was slow to respond. By the time he proposed meaningful change and national dialogue, the momentum of violence had accelerated, eroding the space for genuine compromise.

Meanwhile, his style is so plain that he fails to truly sell his vision of economic and social development for Cameroon or instill a sense of progress towards a goal.

Biya was already pushing the boundaries of popular tolerance with his decision to run for a seventh consecutive term in 2018.

But he ultimately managed to face strong opposition from Maurice Kamto, leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM), and was detained for more than eight months when Kamto challenged the official results that gave him only 14% of the vote.

But this time Tchiroma’s candidacy shifted the mood and sense of possibility in a way that no other opponent had managed before, at least since 1992; Even the official results showed John Fru Ndi of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) with 36% of the vote, just behind Biya’s 40%.

And this time it’s not just that Biya is seven years older and requires more intervention than before.

At the same time, unlike Kamto, who struggled to reach far beyond his core electorate, Tchiroma, a Muslim northerner, attracted support from a broad segment of society and Cameroon’s regions, particularly the two English-speaking regions.

This one-time political prisoner, who later reconciled with Biya and accepted 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.

And in recent days, as tensions rose towards the results announcement, Tchiroma shrewdly remained in his northern hometown of Garoua, where crowds of young supporters had gathered to protect himself from the risk of arrest by security forces.

Now, after such high expectations, there is intense disappointment and anger among opposition supporters at the official result, however expected.

It was reported that security forces shot protesters in the southern port city of Douala, the center of the economy. It was also reported that shots were fired from Garoua.

For Cameroon, Biya’s determination to secure an eighth presidential term came with high risks and painful costs.

Paul Melly is a consultant in the Africa Program at Chatham House in London.