Supporters of the Cameroon Folks’s Democratic Motion (CPDM) maintain the brand new marketing campaign cloth bearing the picture of Cameroon’s President and presidential candidate Paul Biya.
/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — After a newspaper reported in 1897 that the good American author Mark Twain had died, a bemused — however very a lot alive — Twain famously quipped: “the report of my loss of life was an exaggeration.”
This century, a number of growing older African leaders have additionally needed to reject untimely reviews of their deaths, like Cameroon’s Paul Biya final yr when rumours of his demise unfold on social media after he wasn’t seen in public for a month.
It turned out the 92-year-old, who has the excellence of being the world’s oldest, non-royal, chief, was merely in residence at his second residence in Switzerland.
Cameroon incumbent President Paul Biya flanked by his spouse, Cameroon First Girl Chantal Biya (R), addresses a marketing campaign rally in Maroua on October 7, 2025.
ROBERT FIMBAYE/AFP/by way of Getty
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ROBERT FIMBAYE/AFP/by way of Getty
This Sunday he is searching for an eighth time period in workplace –- having dominated Cameroon for 43 years — that consultants say he is all however assured to win provided that his strongest rival was barred from operating. His nation is beset with points together with jihadist violence, a separatist motion, and systemic corruption.
Biya is much from an remoted instance in Africa, which regardless of being the continent with the world’s youngest inhabitants, boasts quite a few gerontocracies.
“It’s an irony for a continent whose median age is simply 19,” says Africa analyst Paul Nantulya. He says “third-termism” as he dubs some African leaders’ makes an attempt to cling to energy, “is a illness.”
NPR seems at some extra of Africa’s oldest leaders.
Malawi’s newly sworn-in President Peter Mutharika makes his inaugural speech throughout his swearing-in and inauguration ceremony at Kamuzu Stadium in Blantyre, on October 4, 2025.
AMOS GUMULIRA/AFP by way of Getty pictures
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AMOS GUMULIRA/AFP by way of Getty pictures
Peter Mutharika, Malawi, 85
Out with the outdated and in with the…older. That is how the small southern African democracy of Malawi voted final month after they elected their former president, 85-year-old Peter Mutharika, over incumbent Lazarus Chakwera, aged 70.
Malawians have been fed up with rising prices and extreme gas shortages.
Alassane Ouattara, Ivory Coast, 83
Ouattara, a former economist for the Worldwide Financial Fund, is operating on October 25 for a fourth time period. In 2020 he stated he would not run once more, because the structure prevented leaders from operating for greater than two phrases. Regardless of that promise, Ouattara later modified the structure to permit himself to run once more, sparking violent protests.
Ivory Coast, a former French colony and the world’s prime cocoa producer, remains to be recovering from a brutal civil conflict within the early 2000s.
There have been protests once more this month within the run-up to the polls, after two opposition leaders have been barred from contesting the vote.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Equatorial Guinea, 83
After Cameroon’s Biya, who beats him by only some months, the longest-ruling chief in Africa is Obiang. At 83 he has additionally dominated his nation for 43 years.
The petrostate on Africa’s West coast has solely had two presidents since independence from Spain within the Nineteen Sixties. The primary was Obiang’s personal uncle, who he overthrew in a coup in 1979.
Portrait of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, 1979
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Gianni Ferrari/Getty Photographs
The nation is successfully a one-party state and worldwide observers have lengthy stated elections are flawed with Obiang often taking 90-plus p.c of the vote. In a single voting district in 2002, he even received 103 p.c of the poll.
Equatorial Guinea additionally has a stunning human rights document and dire state of press freedom. Regardless of the nation’s huge oil wealth, little has trickled all the way down to strange residents whereas Obiang is a fan of mansions, superyachts and luxurious vehicles.
The Trump administration lately permitted a waiver of sanctions towards Obiang to permit him to journey to New York for the UN Common Meeting. He met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and the 2 agreed to increase ties.
Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe, 83
Born only a few months after Obiang, Mnangagwa grew to become president of the Southern African nation after deposing his geriatric predecessor, Robert Mugabe, in a 2017 coup. On the time Mugabe was 93 and had the title of the world’s oldest chief.
Zimbabweans hoped Mnangagwa, 18 years Mugabe’s junior, would permit free and honest elections, repair the nation’s damaged financial system and finish corruption. Eight years later, many Zimbabweans say issues are worse underneath the person they dub “the crocodile.”
The rise of Gen Z
However there are rising indicators time is perhaps up for Africa’s growing older leaders. Younger Africans are fed up with the established order, with so-called “Gen Z” protests erupting this yr in nations like Kenya, Togo, Madagascar and Morocco.
And a few younger leaders are on the rise. Burkina Faso’s 37-year-old interim president Ibrahim Traoré is among the youngest on the earth. Though he rose to energy in a 2022 coup, he is extremely in style with the nation’s youth. Then in Uganda, elections subsequent yr will see popstar-turned-politician Bobi Wine, 43, tackle longtime President Yoweri Museveni, 81 – who’s searching for a seventh time period in workplace.
After all, it is not solely Africa that has formally growing older leaders. Iran’s supreme chief Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei is 86, King Salman of Saudi Arabia is 89, and the final two US presidents, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are 82 and 79 respectively.
