DOUALA: Cameroon on Sunday held its first indirect regional elections that the long-serving president called partly to defuse the separatist insurgency in the English-speaking west but which the opposition is boycotting as a sham.
In Sunday's election, a 24,000-strong electoral college made up of municipal councillors and traditional chiefs will vote to fill the posts of 900 regional councillors: 90 for each of the country's 10 regions.
But the municipal councils that have the greatest proportion of votes is already dominated by 87-year-old President Paul Biya's party.
The two main opposition parties, Maurice Kamto's Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) and the Social Democratic Front (SDF) are both boycotting the polls.
Biya, who has ruled the country for 38 years, has since 2018 faced an unprecedented surge of street protests against his regime.
In addition to that, the far north of the country has been repeatedly targetted for attacks by jihadist, while separatists among the anglophone minority are fighting the government in the southwest.
Voting stations in the port city of Doualia opened at 8:00 am, but the streets were quiet and few people appeared interested in the election.
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