Then there is Cameroon’s long standing and suffering President Paul Barthelemy Biya’a bi Mvondo who goes by the political stage name Paul Biya. Two days ago at the ripe old age of 92, he was on the ballot paper, seeking his 8th term of office. The terms are now 7 years long. Biya who has been President for 43 years; since 1982 was previously the prime minister from 1975 to 1982.
He is the second longest serving ruling African President after Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasongo of Equatorial Guinea. Insah Allah, if he wins then goes on to complete the next term, he will be 99-years-old at its end. Biya is no ordinary President. He rarely appears in public because he is reportedly away in France most of the time. He only returns to attend to important occasions like these elections which take place every after 7 years.
His party is a movement like Uganda’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM.) In English it is the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM.) In French it passes off as Rassemblement democratique du Peuple Camerounais (RDPC). It has dominated Cameroon politics since the 1960s when it was called the Cameroonian National Union (CNU) before it mutated for relevance. Like NRM it dominates the legislature. Currently it controls the Senate with about 94 representatives out of 100 and the National Assembly with 152 seats out of 180. Like NRM, it almost by default, always endorses Biya as the only leader with a vision to prosper Cameroon. Cameroon is one hell of a mess with Biya at the helm. A third of the 29.9 million population lives on less than $2 dollars a day. Youth unemployment is rampant.
The government is grappling with a Jihadist insurgency in the north of the country and the Anglophone separatist in the West. In one of those rare moments Biya’s daughter, Brenda Biya took to social media App TikTok and claimed that her father had made too many people suffer. In a post that was later taken down, she urged the voters to reject him at the polls. Over the years the voter turn up has kept dropping amidst violence visited on government opponents. The opposition itself is fractured with 11 opposition figures vying against Biya this time round. There is hardly a realistic chance of giving the nonagenarian a contest worth its name. What makes these leaders go on even when it looks obvious that they are well past their sell-by date is their mastery of entrenched and perpetual dictatorship with good benefits for a few.
They also carry the steel along the way to deal with the many who are bound to raise questions. It thrives not necessarily by having the masses behind the autocrat. Only a critical mass is needed in the right and decisive places. The president losing power is equivalent to loss of wealth, opportunity and privilege by an ethnic group. In striving to guard it jealously, they fight to keep the main man; the aging patriarch, warts and all, in power. Most important is to create a very weak populace. One with very little or no economic power, for it is easier to load it over very impoverished people. However much the economy grows by impressive figures, he makes sure most of the cream goes into the pockets of a few people, the cronies and foreign investors many of whom act as faces for the former. The rest especially the elite and middle class, should be hustling from day break till dawn; year after year, living from hand to mouth.
Any slight slip pushes them into unimaginable poverty. So they live and grumble quietly and are an ineffective force as far as opposing the government is concerned. They run a system that keeps the taxes high accompanied by costly, endless regulations on everything in place. The people who read and run the rules are well fed from their salaries and with lucrative opportunities of corruption. The proceeds of corruption which is never punished despite the pretence and pronouncements, is used to strengthen the ruling clique. It is used to weaken the rest by buying them off their lands, distorting markets to crowd out the rest using the vast amounts of easily acquired, ill-gotten money. The ruling clique are grateful for the indulgence granted by the dictator. They will do everything to ensure that he remains in power as the best option for the country even if he is visibly and realistically incapable.
He is simply a figure head they rally around. The glue that holds the cabal together. All institutions of state and government are padded with cronies, relatives, people from the president’s circle and other hangers on. There include the electoral commission, the civil service and the judiciary. They take decisions to disadvantage the opposition. In Cameroon the courts barred the most serious opposition candidate Maurice Kamto from standing. The opposition in Uganda may learn from Paul Biya that the old age or health of the principal does not mean much. As long as he has fashioned an effective system of influence and control of the people manning the vital organs of the state, he has a head start. If he still appoints the ones who (dis)organise the election and (mis)count the final tally he is unbeatable.
If he commands the gunmen that police the process and has limitless and unquestioned access to public finance, his opponents have a mountain to climb. He may even buy them, plant moles and split them leaving them quarrelling amongst themselves instead of focusing on him. Above all if he has the knack to allow them enrich themselves through corruption and privilege, even at the expense of destroying the state and the country, its health, education, economy and road network, he is the man to beat. The massive crowds and undying support on social media mean very little save for good pictures. The manifestos, policy promises and messaging will all amount to nothing and end in tears. That is now the puzzle for Uganda’s opposition. How to walk through a mine field set up by the 40 years of NRM under Gen Yoweri Museveni and his appointees. Many of them act like they don’t know the difference between NRM the party plus its head and the state of Uganda they are supposed to serve.