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First Cameroon cabinet meeting in two years

Wednesday April 18 2018
Biya image

Cameroonian President Paul Biya. FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

Cameroonian President Paul Biya Thursday held his cabinet meeting in over two years.

The meeting at the State House in Yaoundé, who details remained scanty, came after a partial cabinet reshuffle on March 2.

The 85-year-old long-serving Cameroonian leader last met with his entire government on October 15, 2015.

Seek re-election

President Biya ,who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, is currently serving his fifth seven-year mandate that is due to end next year.

Supporters of the aging leader have been multiplying calls for him to seek re-election, saying he remains their best bet for the poll.

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Some members of the president’s governing CPDM party in the central Lekie Division, have even promised to finance his campaign with a special $90,000 (FCFA50m) fund.

The Cameroonian leader would have been ineligible to vie for the 2011 presidential election had parliament not tinkered with the constitution and done away with term limits in 2008, a move widely believed to have been remote-controlled by the leader.

Large margins

After scraping the term limits, President Biya claimed when running for another term in 2011, that he was responding to the people's call.

He came to power on November 6, 1982 as second president of Cameroon and grudgingly accepted the introduction of multiparty politics in the early 1990s.

He won the 1992 presidential election with 40 per cent vote and was re-elected by large margins in 1997, 2004, and 2011 in polls that have been heavily criticised by the opposition, alleging gross irregularities and fraud on each occasion.

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