TEHRAN, October 07 - Cameroonians began voting in crunch presidential polls on Sunday, with octogenarian leader Paul Biya seeking a seventh term against a backdrop of unprecedented violence in the country's English-speaking regions.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - The vote follows a last-minute opposition unity bid to dislodge the 85-year-old incumbent, one of Africa's longest-serving rulers.
Two leading opponents have formed the first electoral union since 1992, but talks between the array of other opposition parties to create a "super-coalition" to deny Biya another seven years were apparently unsuccessful.
In the Bastos public school in the capital Yaounde, where Biya will cast his vote later, brisk voting got under way as soon as the polls opened.
"I've come early to avoid queues... I've done my civic duty, now we wait for the results," Joelle, a 51-year-old housewife, told AFP after being the second person to vote.
Voters in the queue were watched by a heavy security presence including members of the presidential guard, deployed ahead of Biya's arrival.
Cameroon's 6.5 million eligible voters are casting their ballots as the toll continues to mount in the anglophone southwest and northwest, which have been rocked by a separatist insurgency launched a year ago against the mainly francophone state.
The violence has claimed the lives of at least 420 civilians, 175 members of the security forces and an unknown number of separatists, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank.
In Buea, capital of the southwest, three separatists of the so-called Ambazonia Republic were gunned down on Friday while a priest was executed by soldiers on Thursday, according to witnesses.
Source: AFP