Paul Biya’s Reelection in Cameroon at Age 92 Secures His Eighth Term with 53.66% of the Vote but Triggers Massive Protests over Suspicions of Electoral Fraud
At the Palais des Congrès in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital, a ritual reeking of authoritarian decay unfolded on October 27, 2025: the official proclamation of 92-year-old Paul Biya as the winner of the October 12 presidential election, securing his eighth consecutive term with 53.66% of the vote.
Clément Atangana, president of the Constitutional Council, read the verdict amid selective applause from regime loyalists, while the country—exhausted after more than four decades under the yoke of a leader in power since 1982—erupted in contained fury.
Biya, the world’s oldest serving head of state, thus extends his rule until 2032, when he would be nearing 100, in a context where a fragmented opposition and the state machinery have smothered any hint of genuine alternation.
The announcement surprised neither analysts nor the streets, but it did fan the embers of discontent that have smoldered for years.
Issa Tchiroma Bakary, a former Biya ally turned 76-year-old rival leading the Cameroon National Salvation Front, secured 35.19% according to official figures, yet days earlier had proclaimed his own victory based on tally sheets that, he claimed, gave him 54.8% in 80% of the electorate.
Opposition leader Issa Tchiroma Bakary has declared himself the winner of Cameroon’s presidential election.
However, the government has condemned his move as illegal, urging citizens to remain patient while official results are tallied. The results will be announced on Monday.
“There was no election; it was a masquerade,” Tchiroma denounced, demanding the truth from the ballot boxes and calling for peaceful mobilizations that the regime branded as sedition.
The prior exclusion of Maurice Kamto, leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement and a key opposition figure, by decision of the Electoral Commission (ELECAM), cleared the path for Biya, recalling the frauds of 2018 and 1992, when rivals such as Kamto or John Fru Ndi also raised their voices against a system designed to perpetuate itself.
What sets this 2025 farce apart is the scale of the popular uprising, driven by a Generation Z fed up with corruption, cuts to education and healthcare, and an Anglophone conflict in the Northwest and Southwest regions that has displaced thousands since 2016.
Immediately after the proclamation, thousands took to the streets of Yaoundé, Douala—Cameroon’s economic lung—and Garoua, Tchiroma’s hometown.Burning tire barricades, toppled presidential posters, and cries for electoral transparency defined the day.
Security forces responded with brutality: tear gas, water cannons, and live ammunition. At least four dead in Douala, two in Garoua, and more than 105 arrests, including opposition leaders such as Jean Calvin Aba’a Oyono and activist Rebecca Enonchong.
Selective internet blackouts, officially blamed on technical failures but viewed as censorship, heightened the perception of opacity.
This episode in Cameroon is a sinister echo of how long-lived regimes, anchored in clientelism and repression, devour African democracy.
Biya, shielded by military elites and rural support forged on empty promises, embodies the failure of Françafrique: a Paris ally who prioritizes fictitious stability over real progress.
The African Union maintains complicit silence, while international observers question the process’s integrity, marked by low turnout in conflict zones—less than 6% in the Northwest—and allegations of tally manipulation.
In this landscape, the Cameroonian people, especially its youth, cry out for change that transcends mere succession.
The protests are not only against an absent nonagenarian—Biya made barely one public appearance during the campaign—but against a system that steals the future from a resource-rich nation impoverished in justice.
If repression prevails, Cameroon could plunge into a spiral of violence that destabilizes the region. It is time for the international community to demand independent audits and press for reforms, not complacency with a political fossil who has turned the presidency into a lifelong monarchy.
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