Polling Stations Closed After Presidential Elections In Cameroon
Polling stations closed in Cameroon this Sunday after a presidential election in which the president, Paul Biya, is seeking an eighth term. The elections were generally peaceful, despite some clashes between security forces and supporters of an opposition candidate in the north of the country.
Nearly eight million Cameroonians were eligible to vote in more than 30,000 polling stations throughout the country, which opened between 08:00 and 18:00 local time (07:00 and 17:00 GMT). More than forty centers were set up in diplomatic missions for the diaspora.
Biya, who, at the age of 92, is the oldest president in the world, as well as the second longest-serving head of state, voted in the country’s capital, Yaoundé.
“The people have acquired a certain maturity, there have been no injuries or fights to regret, which is already something,” the president told the press after exercising his democratic right.
In addition to Biya, who can continue to run after a controversial constitutional reform promoted in 2008 by his party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), to eliminate the limit on presidential terms, Cameroonians found eleven other presidential candidates on the ballot.
Among them were only one woman and, as main contenders, two former ministers and former allies of Biya who resigned from their positions in order to compete for the Head of State, given the uncertainty opened by the president’s advanced age and the lack of a clear successor.
Despite the general calm recorded in the voting, an episode of tension broke out shortly before the closing of the polls in the city of Garoua (north), when supporters of the former Minister of Employment and Vocational Training, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, clashed with security forces, throwing stones and setting fires, after the candidate’s vehicle was blocked by the agents, according to images broadcast on social networks.
The voting has been marked by the absence of Biya’s main rival, opposition leader Maurice Kamto, whose candidacy was rejected by the Cameroonian electoral commission (ELECAM).
According to the country’s law, the president is elected by a simple majority in a single round, and candidates have a period of 72 hours after the proclamation of the provisional results to present appeals to the Constitutional Council, which then has fifteen days to proclaim the definitive results.
