Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, 92, has been re-elected for an eighth term with 53.7 per cent of the votes. This is according to official results announced by the Constitutional Council on Monday.
Rival candidate and former government minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary came second with 35.2 per cent, the council said. Chiroma had claimed victory against the incumbent two days after the October 12 election. Earlier, four people were killed in clashes between security forces and supporters of a Cameroon opposition leader who claims to have won the recent presidential elections, authorities said ahead of the announcement of official results on Monday.
Tchiroma, who challenged President Paul Biya’s 43-year grip on power in the October 12 ballot, had called on his supporters to march peacefully on the eve of the announcement, despite a ban on public gatherings.
Since last week, supporters of Issa Tchiroma, who according to his own tally won 54.8 per cent of the votes against 31.3 per cent for Biya, have taken to the streets to defend his claimed victory.
However, most analysts expected the 92-year-old Biya to win an eighth term in a system his critics say has been increasingly rigged.
In Cameroon’s largest city, Douala, the regional governor said demonstrators “attacked” a gendarmerie brigade and police stations in two districts on Sunday.
“Four people, unfortunately, lost their lives,” said Samuel Dieudonne Ivaha Diboua, adding that several members of the security forces were also injured.
Protesters at the scene showed AFP journalists bullet casings they said they collected after security forces fired shots near the gendarmerie.
The shooting with “live ammunition” began after a volley of tear gas, a demonstrator told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“They fired, three people, three bodies fell in front of us,” he said.
Biya, the world’s oldest serving head of state, secured another seven-year term in a system that critics say has been increasingly rigged.
He is only the second head of state to lead Cameroon since independence from France in 1960.
He has ruled with an iron fist, repressing all political and armed opposition, and holding onto power through social upheaval, economic disparity and separatist violence.
