YAOUNDE: Scattered violence marred Cameroon’s first ever election to appoint regional councils on Sunday, with one voter killed by separatist insurgents in the English-speaking Northwest region.
President Paul Biya hopes the vote will appease critics who say he has long neglected the Central African country’s 10 regions, and end a four-year separatist insurgency in the west which has become the greatest threat to his near 40-year rule.
Opponents say the vote offers only the semblance of regional autonomy. Officials voting in the election are overwhelmingly Biya supporters and will help enforce his will on the regions, they say.
“It is not because we will have regional delegates that gunshots will stop and everything will be all right,” said Cameroonian political analyst Stephane Akoa.
Separatist fighters had vowed to disrupt the vote and arrest anyone who took part in the Northwest and Southwest, the only regions where English is spoken instead of the official French…