At age 92, he secures his eighth term amid protests and allegations of electoral fraud.

On Monday, the Constitutional Council declared President Paul Biya the winner of Cameroon’s Oct. 12 presidential election.

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Biya, a 92-year-old politician who secured his eighth term, won 53.66% of the vote, announced Constitutional Council President Clement Atangana during the official proclamation ceremony held at the Yaounde Conference Center, the capital.

The announcement came a day after four people were killed and several members of the security forces were injured in Douala during protests led by opposition supporters demanding credible election results.

Citizens denounced what they called electoral fraud, saying that former minister and opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma Bakary — who had declared himself the winner two days after the vote and ultimately received 35.19% — had actually defeated the longtime leader at the polls.

Throughout the day, hundreds of opposition supporters erected barricades and burned tires, while police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowds. The governor of the Littoral region, Samuel Ivaha Diboua, blamed the unrest on youths “under the influence of narcotics and driven by criminal intentions,” accusing them of responding to Bakary’s call to protest.

In recent days, demonstrations had erupted in several cities across the country after partial results reported by local media pointed to another victory for Biya, who has been in power since 1982.

“If the Constitutional Council proclaims falsified and distorted results, it will be complicit in a loss of rights, because the Cameroonian people, in their overwhelming majority, will never accept that the Council validates the falsification and manipulation of the ballot boxes,” Bakary warned last Wednesday, after the body rejected all legal challenges seeking to annul the election.

In addition to the incumbent — who was able to run again thanks to a controversial 2008 constitutional amendment that removed presidential term limits — eleven other candidates competed in the election.

However, the vote was marked by the absence of Biya’s main rival, opposition leader Maurice Kamto, whose candidacy was rejected by the electoral commission, ELECAM.

Biya, who will govern Cameroon for another seven years, is currently the world’s oldest sitting president and the second-longest-serving head of state, after his Equatorial Guinean counterpart, Teodoro Obiang.

teleSUR/ JF

Source: EFE

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