Supporters will celebrate Cameroonian President Paul Biya’s 42-year tenure with rallies, special broadcasts, and appeals for an eighth term.
Just over two weeks after the 91-year-old returned to the country after a six-week sabbatical amid widespread uncertainty about his health, members of the president’s party are being urged to express their full support.
“Let us mobilise as one behind President Paul Biya to ensure the stability and progress of Cameroon,” secretary general of the central committee of the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC) Jean Nkuete urged in a letter to party members.
The missive, published late last month as part of the preparations, commended Biya’s “fantastic record” and urged put an end to “malicious speculation and predictions” about the leader, who took over after Ahmadou Ahidjo resigned in 1982.
“The Cameroonian people are the people of respect for age and elders,” it added, calling for backing another term next October for one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders.
In the west, plenty of activists and supporters signed a motion inviting “all Cameroonians, without discrimination based on political opinion, to join us in our call for the candidacy of the President of the Republic, Paul Biya.”
In the southern town of Ebolowa, at a screening of a documentary dedicated to “Paul Biya, a great statesman with a prodigious destiny,” Higher Education Minister and RDPC communication official Jacques Fame Ndongo likewise “solemnly requested” that Biya stand again.
Biya has maintained his typical silence on the subject, giving no indication of his intentions.
He has not named a successor, and the issue of who will succeed him remains taboo.
Following highly contested elections in 2018, Biya strengthened his dictatorial grip on power, with dissent met with persecution, arrests, and prison sentences, according to human rights activists.
His prolonged absence since departing Beijing at the beginning of September following a China-Africa cooperation conference raised numerous concerns.
Health rumours circulated, causing authorities to take the rare step of issuing a statement on October 8 stating that the president was fine, was working from Switzerland, and would return home in a few days.
Biya, who had previously spent long amounts of time in Switzerland for medical care or at luxurious vacation resorts, returned to Cameroon on October 21 to a jubilant reception from his party.
He was received at Yaounde airport by the presidency’s secretary general, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, and his wife, Chantal, though a lift for travellers with limited mobility was observed close.
According to his supporters, he has signed a number of decrees since then, including a spate of military appointments, demonstrating his continued influence.
On Saturday, his party’s deputy secretary, Gregoire Owona, told CRTV state television that the president “is working hard for his country” and “knows the issues well.”
The presidency posted images last week showing a cheerful Biya visiting Gabon’s high commissioner at the presidential palace.
These are the president’s only photographs since his return. Meanwhile, the latest edition of “Time of Opportunity” magazine, published by the presidency’s civil office, devotes almost 50 pages to describing Biya’s “intense” diplomatic actions.
In a piece published in the Cameroon Tribune on Monday, CRTV president Charles Ndongo summarised the key to the survival of the world’s oldest head of state as “absence, distance, and silence.”
