In Cameroon, government security forces used tear gas to break up protests by opposition party supporters, after media reports suggested that partial results from the country’s Oct. 12 presidential election put incumbent President Paul Biya in the lead. The 92-year-old Biya, who has ruled the country for 43 years, is seeking an eighth term in an election whose outcome most observers considered to be predetermined. But his principal challenger—a former Cabinet minister and erstwhile Biya ally, Issa Tchiroma—claimed victory last week and warned that any attempt to rig the outcome, as Biya has commonly done in the past, would lead to domestic unrest.
Regardless of the election results, Tangi Bihan wrote earlier this month, “a sense of twilight” hangs over Biya’s presidency: “The governing class is ossified. … Peripheral regions are plagued by poverty and insecurity. Boko Haram militants and criminal gangs operate in the Far North, while separatist militias remain active in the Anglophone west.” Most observers expect a destabilizing scramble for power between regime factions once Biya is no longer able to function as even the country’s nominal head of state. Depending on the final election results when they are announced, and Tchiroma’s response, that scramble may break out sooner than expected.
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