YAOUNDE , October 7 , 2018 (Reuters) - Polls opened in Cameroon on Sunday for an election widely expected to extend the 36-year rule of President Paul Biya and confirm his place as one of Africa's last multi-decade leaders. Victory would usher in a seventh term for the 85-year-old and see him stay until at least the age of 92, bucking a tentative trend in Africa where many countries have installed presidential term limits. The only current African president to have ruled longer is Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. While the oil and cocoa producing Central African country has seen economic growth of over 4 per cent a year since Biya was last elected in 2011, many of its 24 million citizens live in deep poverty. Most have only known one president. Looming over the polls is a secessionist uprising in the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions that has cost hundreds of lives and forced thousands to flee either to the French-speaking regions or into neighbouring Nigeria. Ghost towns remain, where the few who have stayed say they are afraid to go out and vote. Voting proceeded smoothly on Sunday in the French-speaking city of Douala and the capital of Yaounde. However, in the Anglophone regional capital of Buea neither of two polling stations visited by a Reuters witness were operational as staff did not have sufficient electoral materials. Meanwhile 15 kilometers (9 miles) up the road in Ekona village, a convoy of military vehicles could not deliver materials to a polling station, because it was not staffed. Some opposition parties have united in an effort to bolster support and harness discontent about the country's crumbling infrastructure and about Biya, who they say has ruled Cameroon like a personal fiefdom for too long.
