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'Paul Biya' (born February 13, 1933) became the President of Cameroon on November 6, 1982.Profile of Biya at Cameroonian presidency web site .Biography at 2004 presidential election web site .

Contents

Personal life

Political career

Opposition and criticism

Notes

Personal life

Biya was born in the village of Mvomeka'a in the Centre-South Province of what was then French Cameroon. He is a member of the Beti-Pahuin ethnic group. He studied in Paris at ''Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po)'', where he graduated in 1961 with a diploma in International Relations. He married Jeanne-Irène Biya with whom he had a son, Franck Biya. After Jeanne-Irène Biya died in 1992, Paul Biya married Chantal Biya in 1994, and he has had two more children with her.

Political career

He served under President Ahmadou Ahidjo; after becoming Director of the Cabinet of the Minister of National Education in January 1964 and Secretary General of the Ministry of National Education in July 1965, he was named Director of the Civil Cabinet of the President in December 1967 and Secretary General of the Presidency (while remaining Director of the Civil Cabinet) in January 1968. He gained the rank of Minister in August 1968 and Minister of State in June 1970, while remaining Secretary General of the Presidency. He became Prime Minister on June 30 1975. In June 1979, a law designated the Prime Minister as the President's constitutional successor. Ahidjo resigned on November 6, 1982, and Biya became president, as he was Ahidjo's hand-picked successor. However, after Ahidjo's resignation, Biya repudiated some of Ahidjo's policies, replaced most of Ahidjo's cabinet, and eventually Ahidjo was forced into exile.
As the only candidate, Biya was elected President on January 14 1984 and re-elected on April 24 1988. He was elected President of the ruling party, the Cameroon National Union, on September 14 1984, and was elected Chairman of its successor party, the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement, in the next year.
Biya won the first multiparty presidential election, held on October 11 1992, with about 40 percent of the vote and a relatively small margin over opposition candidate John Fru Ndi, who received about 36 percent. He was re-elected in October 1997 presidential election with 92.6 percent of the vote, but the main opposition parties boycotted this election.^[1] He won another seven-year term in the presidential election of October 11, 2004, officially taking 70.92 percent of the vote, but the opposition alleged widespread fraud.^[2]

Opposition and criticism

Biya has been criticized by some as being a strongman, and is sometimes considered to be aloof from the people. He has also been strongly criticized by the Anglophones, the English-speaking people of Cameroon who live in the region formerly under British colonial rule, for their marginalization and oppression. His strongest opposition is from this region of Cameroon.
The historian David Wallechinsky, in his book ''Tyrants, the World's 20 Worst Living Dictators'', ranked Biya with three others in sub-Saharan Africa: Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea and King Mswati of Swaziland. He describes Cameroon's electoral process in these terms: “Every few years, Biya stages an election to justify his continuing reign, but these elections have no credibility. In fact, Biya is credited with a creative innovation in the world of phony elections. In 2004, annoyed by the criticisms of international vote-monitoring groups, he paid for his own set of international observers, six ex-U.S. congressmen, who certified his election as free and fair.”^[3] In 2007, ''Parade'' magazine ranked Biya the 19th worst dictator in the world.^[4]

Notes

1. Elections in Cameroon, African Elections Database.
2. "Cameroon's Supreme Court confirms Biya's re-election" ''Agence France Presse'', October 25, 2004.
3. David Wallechinsky, ''Tyrants: the World's 20 Worst Living Dictators'', Regan Press, 2006, pp. 286-290
4. The World's Worst Dictators - 2007