Oldest president in the world strives for eighth term in office

Oldest president in the world

He still doesn’t have enough

Paul Biya has been in power in Cameroon since 1982. Now he is aiming for an eighth term. The president spends a lot of time outside of his home country.

The oldest president in the world, Cameroon Head of State Paul Biya, stands for election at the age of 92 for an eighth term. “The best thing is still coming,” it said in a corresponding message on his page at the online platform X. Biya has been president of the coastal state in Central Africa since 1982. Before that, he has been prime minister since 1975.

Longer than BIYA, only the dictator in Kamerun’s neighboring country Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, is in office. The 83-year-old crushed to power in 1979 and has been officially president since 1982.

Biya and his wife Chantal spend a lot of time in Switzerland. Last year Biya caused a sensation after no sign of life came to the public for more than five weeks. In Cameroon, rumors about the death of the long -term ruler were already circulating.

Thereupon the presidential palace in the capital Yaoundé was forced to comment that Biya was alive and that the Swiss geneva is enjoying good health. It later became known that the then 91-year-old had probably flown to Paris for medical treatments. Critical voices have long been saying that Biya has been badly drawn by age, he could hardly walk and he suffered with increasing intellectual decay.

“The president of our beautiful nation cannot be dead at all,” said Gregory Mewano, a official of Biya’s democratic People’s Party. Which should prevent any rumors in the country. After this incident in Cameroon, speculation about the president’s state of health was officially banned. The decree is seen in Cameroon primarily as an instrument to silence the opposition’s voices.

Criticism has been inflamed for years of staying abroad for several months. While Cameroon experienced severe domestic crises in the past, such as strengthening the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram, attacks with many dead, kidnappings, the president often stayed in Switzerland. In Geneva, he is said to have rented the top floor with luxury suites for himself and his entourage as a kind of second home in a five-star hotel.

In 2022 there were protests against Biya’s presence in Switzerland: members of the Cameroonian diaspora in Europe had gathered in front of the Nobelhotel, in which the head of state resided and demonstrated loudly against the authoritarian ruling president. Biya’s personal bodyguard and Cameroonian security forces then went against the demonstrators, which finally called on the scene that ended the situation using tear gas.

The election is made in Cameroon on October 12th. The country has almost 30 million inhabitants, half of whom is younger than 19 years old. There is formally a multi -party democracy. Opposition and civil society as well as freedom of expression and press are severely restricted. The opposition criticizes the elections as manipulated. According to the official results, Biya received 71 percent of the votes, the runner -up 14 percent.

Cameroon was once a German colony, after the First World War the country was divided between France and Great Britain. There has been a bloody conflict between the French -speaking majority and the country’s English -language regions since around 2017, in which at least 6,500 people were killed and another 600,000 were sold. It is estimated that around 40 percent of the residents of Cameroon live in poverty.