Cameroon President Paul Biya has been outside the country for more than two months, renewing questions about his health, succession and who is effectively governing a nation he has led for more than four decades.
Biya, 93, left Cameroon on June 7 for what his office described as a “brief private stay in Europe.” Government spokesman René Emmanuel Sadi later confirmed that he was in Geneva, Switzerland, and said he had not been hospitalized.
The absence is now reportedly Biya’s longest uninterrupted period outside Cameroon in years.
Biya is Cameroon’s second president since independence in 1960 and one of the world’s longest-serving leaders. He first won office in 1984 under a one-party system, then won six more elections after multiparty politics was introduced.
Biya has governed the Central African country since 1982, when he succeeded its first post-independence president, Ahmadou Ahidjo. He won his first presidential election in 1984 and secured a disputed eighth elected term last year, potentially keeping him in office until he is nearly 100.
His opponents disputed the election result and alleged fraud, while the election period was marked by deadly confrontations between protesters and security forces.
Biya has frequently spent extended periods overseas and is rarely seen publicly. Speculation about his health has consequently become a recurring feature of Cameroonian politics. In 2024, the government went as far as restricting media discussion of his health, describing the issue as a matter of national security.
Despite his latest absence, Biya has continued exercising presidential authority from abroad, including announcing a significant military reshuffle this month. Government officials insist there is no power vacuum, with Sadi saying Biya is alive and will return to Cameroon soon.
The situation has nevertheless renewed debate about whether his prolonged absence could constitute a vacancy in the presidency. Opposition politician Samuel Hiram Iyodi has called for parliament to ask the Constitutional Council to consider the issue, although Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement dominates the country’s political institutions.
For many Cameroonians, Biya is literally the only national leader they have known. His presidency now spans more than 43 years and several generations.
Criticism of his government extends beyond his longevity in office. Political observers point to poor roads, unreliable electricity supplies, corruption, youth unemployment and shortcomings in healthcare. Cameroon also continues to confront the separatist conflict in its English-speaking regions and attacks by Boko Haram militants in the north.
For older Cameroonians, Biya’s continued rule carries particular historical significance. Some remember him arriving in power as a comparatively young figure who represented political change and optimism.
More than four decades later, his prolonged stay in Switzerland has brought the question of Cameroon’s eventual political transition back to the forefront, while the government maintains that the president remains in charge.
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