Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, the world’s oldest serving head of state at 92, will run for re-election in this year’s presidential vote on October 12, a post on the president’s X account said on Sunday.<\/p>\n
“I am a candidate in the presidential election. Rest assured that my determination to serve you matches the urgency of the challenges we face,” the post on the official account said.<\/p>\n
Biya, who is seeking a new term that could keep him in office until he is nearly 100, came to power more than four decades ago in 1982, when his predecessor Ahmadou Ahidjo resigned.<\/p>\n
His health is the subject of frequent speculation, most recently last year when he disappeared from public view for 42 days.<\/p>\n
His re-election bid had been widely anticipated but not formally confirmed until Sunday’s social media post.<\/p>\n
Biya had been posting regularly on his verified X handle in the buildup to the announcement.<\/p>\n
In 2018, in a first, he also used social media to announce his candidacy for that year’s presidential contest, marking a rare direct engagement with the public on digital platforms.<\/p>\n
Members of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) and other supporters have since last year publicly called for Biya to seek another term.<\/p>\n
But opposition parties and some civil society groups argue his long rule has stifled economic and democratic development.<\/p>\n
Two former allies have\u00a0quit the ruling coalition\u00a0and announced plans to separately run in the election.<\/p>\n
HEALTH WORRIES<\/strong><\/p>\n Sunday’s announcement is sure to revive debate over Biya’s fitness for office. He seldom makes public appearances, often delegating responsibilities to the powerful chief of staff of the president’s office.<\/p>\n Last October, he returned to Cameroon after\u00a0a 42-day absence\u00a0that sparked speculation he was unwell. The government claimed he was fine but\u00a0banned any discussion\u00a0of his health, saying it was a matter of national security.<\/p>\n Biya scrapped term limits in 2008, clearing the way for him to run indefinitely. He won the 2018 election with 71.28% of the vote, though opposition parties alleged widespread irregularities.<\/p>\n The cocoa- and oil-producing Central African nation, which has had just two presidents since independence from France and Britain in the early 1960s, is likely to face a messy succession crisis if Biya were to become too ill to remain in office or dies.<\/p>\n Besides Biya, several opposition figures have also declared their intention to run, including 2018 runner-up Maurice Kamto of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, Joshua Osih of the Social Democratic Front, lawyer Akere Muna and Cabral Libii of the Cameroon Party for National Reconciliation.<\/p>\n All have criticized Biya’s long rule and called for reforms to ensure a fair vote in 2025.<\/p>\n Under Biya, Cameroon has faced economic challenges and insecurity on several fronts, including a drawn-out separatist conflict in its English-speaking regions and ongoing incursions from Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram in the north.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, the world’s oldest serving head of state at 92, will run for re-election in this year’s presidential vote on October 12, a post on the president’s X account said on Sunday. “I am a candidate in the presidential election. Rest assured that my determination to serve you matches the urgency of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9785,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2362,33],"tags":[4194,193,1503],"class_list":["post-16926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-ahmadou-ahidjo","tag-cameroon","tag-paul-biya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}