YAOUNDE — Cameroon's 92-year-old President Paul Biya has been declared the winner of heavily disputed elections by the Central African country’s Constitutional Council.

Biya, got 53.7% of the vote compared to the 25% of his main challenger Issa Tchiroma Bakary, has been re-elected for an eighth term that could keep him in office until he is nearly 100, according to official results announced on Monday.

“Hereby proclaimed President-elect: the candidate Biya Paul,” said Clement Atangana, president of the Constitutional Council.

Biya, 92, took office in 1982 and has held a tight grip on power ever since, doing away with the presidential term limit in 2008 and winning reelection by comfortable margins.

Biya came to power, elbowing aside his patron and predecessor Ahmadou Ahidjo, promising liberal reforms before entrenching his hold on the presidency.

Praise for Biya includes the expansion of schools and public universities during his time in office, and his handling of the Bakassi dispute which saw the oil-rich peninsula handed to Cameroon instead of Nigeria.

But, under his aegis, Cameroon is almost a decade deep into a violent separatist insurgency in the English-speaking west, unemployment stands at 40% for the under-35s, roads and hospitals are crumbling, and freedom of speech is more a notion than a reality, external.

This year his strongest challenge came from Bakary, a former government spokesperson and employment minister in his late 70s. He broke ranks with Biya earlier this year and mounted a campaign that drew large crowds and endorsements from a coalition of opposition parties and civic groups. — Agencies