As President Paul Biya turns ninety this week, an escalating power struggle for his position leaves most Cameroonians with little to celebrate.  

Biya, at eighty-five years old, is seeking a seventh consecutive term that would extend his thirty-six-year rule as Cameroon's president until 2025.

On November 4, two days before Biya’s inauguration, seventy-eight students, the principal, and two staff members were kidnapped from a Presbyterian school near Bamenda, in the Anglophone part of the country. On November 7, officials reported that the seventy-eight students were freed the day before, as was a staff member. As of November 8, the principal, a teacher, and perhaps more children, were still in captivity.

As Cameroon-watchers await the official results of this month’s elections, the outcome is highly predictable—victories for the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) and for the long-serving incumbent president, eighty-five-year-old Paul Biya. But the country’s future is utterly uncertain.