The swearing in ceremony has come to complete recent political activities in Cameroon, which opened on August 30 2011 with the convening of the electorate by sitting President Biya. Sunday, October 9 2011 was the Presidential election date. October 21, the results of the Presidential poll were declared by the Supreme Court playing the role of the Constitutional Court. President-elect Biya came out winner with 77.9 percent.

Now installed, President Biya is expected to make real in his new-seven-year-mandate, the plethora of promises made during the campaigns.

Some observers have noted that as Biya engages his 6th term in office, he is amongst some of the longest-serving Presidents in the African continent. At the close of this new mandate, he would have clocked 36 years in power. After Robert Gabe Mugabe of Zimbabwe, 87 and Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, 85, Biya is current 78 years old.

For 29 years, Biya has been at the apogee of political power in Cameroon. While he was Prime Minister of Cameroon, President Ahmadou Ahidjo (Cameroon’s first President) handed over power to Biya on November 6 1982, after he (Ahidjo) resigned on November 4 1982. Biya gave a veneer of legitimacy to his accession to power when he was elected President on January 14, 1984. It was at this time that he appointed Bello Bouba Maigari, Prime Minister.

He got his second mandate on April 24, 1988 when he was elected without any challenger in a one-party election. It was on October 11, 1992 that Biya faced a challenger, John Fru Ndi of the Social Democratic Front, SDF, when he sought for his third mandate.

Going by official results proclaimed by the Supreme Court, Biya was re-elected with 39.9 percent of the total votes, while Fru Ndi was the runner-up with 35.9 percent. It was widely believed that the authorities tempered with the results, while victory slipped through the fingers of the SDF.

Following the amendment of the constitution on January 18, 1996, the mandate of the President was moved from five to seven years, renewable once. Biya had no difficulties grabbing his 4th mandate following the boycott of the October 12, 1997 Presidential Election by the SDF.

He obtained his 5th mandate, following the October 11, 2004 Presidential Election.

On April 10, 2008, Biya used his party’s-dominated National Assembly to amend the constitution, abrogating the article that provided a limitation to presidential mandates. This new-found constitutional provision paved the way for President Biya to run for and subsequently win the 2011 Presidential poll.