Cameroon govt critic says opposition has failed to unite against president

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YAOUNDE - High-profile government critic Maurice Kamto said Friday the opposition had failed to unite against Cameroon's 92-year-old President Paul Biya in the wake of his own exclusion from the election.

Earlier in the month, Kamto had urged the 11 opposition figures running in the October 12 vote against Biya, the world's oldest head of state, to either agree on a single candidate or reach a coalition deal.

He argued that an alliance between rival ex-ministers Bello Bouba Maigari and Issa Tchiroma Bakari, for example, could have created a "popular national dynamic" for the opposition.

Kamto said Friday that despite having held talks with seven of the 11 prospective candidates, he had failed to get an agreement on a united front.

While he warned that internal divisions among the opposition threatened their hopes of ousting Biya, the 71-year-old urged Cameroonians to "vote with their consciences".

Kamto, a high-profile critic of Biya who came second to the president in the 2018 election, was himself excluded from running by a constitutional court ruling in August.

"Despite the iniquitous and ignoble decision to reject my candidacy, many Cameroonians have continued to believe that I can still play a role in the ballot," Kamto said in a video posted on social media on Friday.

Campaigning is set to begin on Saturday, and Biya is bidding to extend his 43 years at the head of the central African state through an eighth term in office.

With Biya in his tenth decade, rumours over the longtime leader's health have spread.

In the run-up to the campaign's starting gun on Saturday, the president left the country for what his office termed a "private trip to Europe", with Geneva his likely destination.