Cameroon’s ruling party called a rare meeting of senior leaders on Wednesday as criticism mounted over the continued absence of President Paul \u200bBiya, 93, who has spent the last 45 days abroad.<\/p>\n
Biya, the \u200cworld’s oldest head of state, left Cameroon on June 7 for what the civil cabinet described as “a brief private stay in Europe” and has since not returned. The government has provided no \u200binformation as to when he might be back.<\/p>\n
Jean Nkuete, secretary-general of the \u200bcentral committee of the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), who summoned the \u2060meeting, did not disclose its agenda, describing it in a statement only as “an important \u200bworking session”. There was no immediate indication that the meeting was linked to Biya’s \u200bprolonged absence from public view.<\/p>\n
In office since 1982, Biya has for years spent extended stretches in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe, though his advanced age means they have increasingly fuelled speculation about \u200bhis health, whereabouts and ability to govern. The current overseas trip is his \u200blongest yet.<\/p>\n
DISCUSSION OF HEALTH BANNED<\/strong><\/p>\n After a similarly extended period out of the country in 2024, the \u200cgovernment\u00a0banned\u00a0discussion \u2060of Biya’s health.<\/p>\n That has not stopped some opposition figures from commenting on Biya’s absence.<\/p>\n The Cameroon Democratic Union, an opposition party, said in a statement on July 18 that officials should “provide the nation with the necessary clarifications regarding the effective continuity of \u200bthe state.”<\/p>\n In a Facebook \u200bpost on July \u206017, opposition lawmaker Jean Michel Nintcheu said the Constitutional Court should declare the position of head of state vacant.<\/p>\n A government spokesperson \u200bdid not respond to a request for comment. The government \u200bhas previously \u2060dismissed reports that Biya is receiving medical treatment and said he can effectively run the cocoa- and oil-producing country from overseas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cameroon’s ruling party called a rare meeting of senior leaders on Wednesday as criticism mounted over the continued absence of President Paul \u200bBiya, 93, who has spent the last 45 days abroad. Biya, the \u200cworld’s oldest head of state, left Cameroon on June 7 for what the civil cabinet described as “a brief private stay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9785,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"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","show_comment_section":"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":[193,2739,1503],"class_list":["post-21538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-cameroon","tag-cameroon-peoples-democratic-movement-cpdm","tag-paul-biya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21538","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=21538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21539,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21538\/revisions\/21539"}],"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=21538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}