Cameroonians are heading to the polls on Sunday where they are expected to re-elect their 85-year-old president to a seventh term.
The election comes amid a tense backdrop of spiraling violence and unrest in the north and southwest of the country.
President Paul Biya has ruled the country since 1982. Observers say he is almost certain to win the election, which means he will be 92 at the end of that term.
Biya has often won past elections by a landslide. In the last election in 2011, the Supreme Court found that Biya got 77% of the vote, beating out 22 other contenders.
Cameroonian president wins vote, extending 29-year-rule.
The octogenarian leader is one of Africa’s longest-serving rulers. He’s also someone who is accused by rights groups of presiding over a brutal regime, characterized by human rights abuses, particularly towards residents of Cameroon’s English-speaking provinces.
Sunday’s elections will be the 11th presidential election since Cameroon’s independence in 1960. There are nine candidates, and six of them are running for the first time.
A leading opposition figure is former justice minister Maurice Kamto, who leads the Mouvement pour la Renaissance du Cameroun (MRC) party.
The youngest candidate, at 38, is former journalist Cabral Libii. He is popular with young people, who make up 60 percent of Cameroon’s population of 24 million.
Around seven million voters are expected to vote. According to Cameroon law, election results must be announced within 15 days.
The security situation in the country has worsened significantly since 2017 when conflict broke out in its north and southwest regions between government security forces and Anglophone separatists, who declared independence, and tried to form their own country called Ambazonia.
Many Cameroonians have fled the anglophone region for other areas of the country and for neighboring countries like Nigeria. As a result, there are concerns if voters will turn out at all there.
Horrific videos and images of abuse, murder, and torture allegedly by Cameroonian soldiers have flooded social media in recent months.
CNN has not been able to independently verify these images.
However, one of these shocking videos, which went viral online, shows the execution of two women and two children by uniformed men and has attracted widespread condemnation.
Human rights group Amnesty International says it has “credible information” that Cameroonian soldiers were involved.
The agency said: “Extensive analysis of the weapons, dialogue, and uniforms that feature in the video, paired with digital verification techniques and testimonies taken from the ground, all strongly suggest that the perpetrators of the executions are Cameroonian soldiers.”
