President
Paul Biya of Cameroon celebrates his 85th birthday on Tuesday after 35 years at
the helm of a country that today faces daunting problems, including a
separatist revolt.
“The
Cameroon of tomorrow, which is developing before our eyes, will have little
connection with the Cameroon of yesterday… Let us seize the chance and take up
the challenge,” Biya on Saturday said in a speech on the nation’s youth.
Three-quarters
of Cameroon’s population, according to the most recent available statistics
from 2014, are under 25. They were yet to be born when Biya in November 1982
settled into the presidential residence of Etoudi in the capital Yaounde, also
called the Palace of Unity.
Biya
urged young Cameroonians to vote in the next general elections due at the end
of 2018, including a presidential poll.
But —
true to his nickname of “the Sphinx” — he remained silent on whether he plans
to run for a seventh term.
Several
candidates have already declared their intentions, but the presidential camp
has long since learned to keep a close watch over dissenting voices.
‘Divide
and rule’
Biya has
locked down all key posts and institutions, up to the creation early in
February of a Constitutional Council of 11 members, the majority of whom come
from the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC). Their duties will
notably include the validation of election results.
A former
student in a Roman Catholic seminary and then of political science in Paris,
Biya “has put the saying ‘divide and rule’ into practice,” said Stephane Akoa,
a researcher at the Paul Ango Ela Foundation.
“This is
how he is able to remain at the apex of the system — forces who might have
contested his power can’t get organised, let alone form a coalition.”
The most
obvious threats to this picture come from separatists in the anglophone west,
where two provinces were united with French-speaking Cameroon after
independence in 1960. English-speakers comprise a fifth of the population.
Resentment
runs high over perceived neglect by the francophone-majority regime. Dozens of
people have been killed on both sides since a bloody crackdown on protest by
October, sparking an escalation of bloodshed that led to a week-long curfew on
Saturday.
Northern
Cameroon, meanwhile, is vulnerable to raids against civilians and troops from
across the border by Nigeria’s jihadist group Boko Haram. Cameroon is part of a
regional military coalition formed to crush the movement.
Foreign
trips
Biya’s
taste for alpaca suits and silk ties and repeated and often lengthy absences,
especially to Switzerland, have been a source for criticism in a nation where
more than a third of the population still survives on less than two euros
($2.40) a day.
The
foreign trips in particular have raised questions about Biya’s health. Rumours
that he was sick circulated again at the end of January, but they were
confounded by his television appearance on Saturday. His public appearances are
so rare that they are closely scrutinised.
Biya
offered an upbeat assessment of the state of the nation.
The
threat from Boko Haram is “considerably reduced”, the anglophone regions have
“calmed down” — though three gendarmes were killed on Sunday — and the national
economy has been “embellished”, as he put it.
External
commentators, though, say the threat of instability is casting a lengthening
shadow.
“With
the troubles in anglophone regions and the persistent threat from Boko Haram,
the 2018 elections will be a greater challenge than previous votes,” said Hans
De Marie Heungoup, a researcher with the International Crisis Group (ICG)
thinktank.
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