Cameroon’s 92-year-old president set for another term as country goes to polls

Paul Biya, in power since 1982, has brushed off calls to retire but is rarely seen in public

Cameroon goes to the polls on Sunday for a presidential election with Paul Biya, already the world’s oldest head of state at the age of 92, the favourite to win an eighth term in power in the central African country.

A fractured opposition of 11 candidates is standing against Biya, who, despite his advanced age and declining health, has dismissed calls for him to retire.

“Our candidate is in great shape ... and he is capable of continuing what he has started,” Grégoire Owona, the labour minister and the ruling party’s secretary general, told French radio RFI in late September.

Many of the 7.8 million Cameroonians eligible to vote can remember no leader other than Biya, who has held on to the presidency with an iron fist since 1982.