Yaoundé (AFP) – Cameroonians voted Sunday in an election expected to return 92-year-old Paul Biya, the world's oldest serving head of state, to office after 43 years in power.
AFP journalists saw voters crowding outside polling stations during the day in the capital Yaounde before they closed in the early evening, with an electoral official declaring the ballot had gone "calmly".
Biya faced 11 opponents, including former employment minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary, 79, who generated unexpected enthusiasm among voters in the central African nation, where half the population is under 20.
Most of the eight million Cameroonians who were eligible to vote in the one-round election had only known one ruler in their lifetime.
Biya has been in power since 1982 and has won every election in the past 20 years with more than 70 percent of the vote.
"Nothing is certain. Let's wait until we know the name of the elected official," Biya told reporters after he cast his ballot in the Bastos neighbourhood, near the presidential palace.
Cameroonian political scientist Stephane Akoa told AFP: "We shouldn't be naive. We know full well the ruling system has ample means at its disposal to get results in its favour."
But he said that the campaign in recent days had been "much livelier" than was usually the case at that stage and "this poll is therefore more likely to throw up surprises."
AFP reporters saw polling stations close at 1700 GMT. "Voting passed off calmly," an official from the national electoral authority, Jean-Alain Andzongo, told AFP at a voting station in the capital.
Biya kept his customary low profile during the campaign, appearing in public on Tuesday for the first time since May.
He held a rally in Maroua in the strategic Far North region, which has 1.2 million eligible voters and makes up the second largest voting bloc in the country.
For years, it was considered a Biya stronghold but several former allies from the area were this time running against him.
The 11 rival candidates made numerous public appearances, each promising a new dawn for Cameroon.
In stark contrast to Biya, whose appearance attracted a sparse crowd of just a few hundred people, Bakary was welcomed in the streets of his home region by thousands of supporters waving placards that hailed "Tchiroma the Saviour".
Bakary -- who resigned from the government in June to join the opposition after 20 years at Biya's side -- is the leading challenger after top opponent Maurice Kamto was barred from the race by the Constitutional Council.
Rights groups including Human Rights Watch said that move undermined the credibility of the electoral process.
Biya is only the second president Cameroon has had since independence from France in 1960.
Despite an abundance of natural and agricultural resources, around 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, according to World Bank figures for 2024, and unemployment stands at 35 percent in the major cities.
Cameroonians complain about the high cost of living, a lack of clean drinking water, healthcare and quality education.
