In Cameroon, Paul Biya's lack of a succession plan is the elephant in the room

Although Biya is expected to win reelection next year, the race to succeed the oldest head of state in the world is effectively underway

Credit: Daily Monitor

In my latest piece for World Politics Review, I wrote about Cameroon’s next presidential election, which many believe will be President Paul Biya’s last stand.

Here’s an excerpt:

The 91-year-old Biya, who has been president since 1982, has not publicly announced his immediate plans but is widely expected to seek reelection in the next presidential contest, which is scheduled for October 2025. If he does, there is little doubt that he will be declared the winner, given his total control of Cameroon’s political order and the historical precedent of the country’s previous presidential elections. As a result, most observers expect the contest will be little more than an academic exercise.

Nevertheless, some—including Biya’s closest political allies—are taking a longer-term view of the political landscape, which is anything but straightforward. Speculation about “life after Biya” has long been rife in Cameroon but has become more pronounced in recent years given his advanced age and unwillingness to formulate a succession plan. Biya will be 92 if the vote is held as planned next year, and a presidential term in Cameroon lasts for seven years, meaning that he will be 99 years old when his eighth stint in office comes to a close in 2032. But there is a widespread, if subtly acknowledged, consensus that Biya is unlikely to see out a full seven-year term. Accordingly, delicate but inescapable discussions about a post-Biya succession have become more common and are taking on more significance, both for Cameroon and the region, given the potential for political instability in the coming years.

For many years, the answer to the question of who will succeed Biya in office has proven to be as mysterious as his actual age.¹ He keeps his cards close to his chest and has refused to leave even the slightest hint about his preferred choice of a successor, if one exists. Few people will broach the notion of a post-Biya Cameroon in public given that it is tantamount to lèse-majesté, although it is very much a topic of private conversation among ordinary citizens and political elites alike. The 2025 presidential race is not expected to result in anything but a win for Biya but for some Cameroonians, it is the beginning of the end of the Biya era, a development that will be consequential for the country and the broader region.

Biya is the oldest head of state in the world and the second-longest serving president on the African continent. He is among a group of Central African leaders that includes Republic of Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso and Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema² who have held power for decades—nearly half a century in some cases—and most of whom are symbols of a weakening but still existent legacy of Françafrique, the neocolonial system of French influence and control over its former colonies in West and Central Africa. An overwhelming majority of Cameroonians have never known any other leader aside from Biya, given the country's youthful demographics which mirror that of the wider continent. Cameroon’s median age is 18, more than 40% of its population is younger than 15 and the share of the population that is younger than 25 is more than 60% according to some findings. Given Cameroon’s strategic location, its proximity to Nigeria as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo and the ongoing security dilemmas in the country, the political instability that could be triggered by the question of Biya’s succession will need to be managed carefully.

You can read the article here.

1. Pretty much any Cameroonian aged 45 or older knows that Biya is closer to 100 years old than he is to 90. Nor would that be anything particularly shameful. Like most Africans born during the colonial era, his birth records are nearly impossible to ascertain.

2. Chad’s Idriss Déby and Gabon’s Ali Bongo were recent members of the club. Déby was killed in 2021 while Bongo was overthrown last year in a military coup.