Cameroon's borders have been closed and businesses shut for Sunday's parliamentary election, amid protests of vote-rigging by opposition parties.
Voters in Cameroon are going to the polls to elect a new parliament amid opposition claims of widespread fraud.
The party of Paul Biya - President for the past 25 years - already holds 149 of the 180 seats in parliament.
Initial reports suggested a low turnout was likely and no queues were seen at most booths in the capital, Yaounde.
A BBC correspondent says there are some reports that he wants to maintain his big majority to enact reforms allowing an extension of his rule.
Opposition to President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 25 years, is limited and only 5.5m of the 18m population has signed up to vote.
With opposition limited, campaigning and voter registration has been slow.
Mr Biya's Democratic Rally of the Cameroonian People party holds 149 of the 180 seats in parliament.
Diplomats told Reuters only 5.5 million of Cameroon's 18 million population have signed up to vote.
Indelible ink
"Whether we vote or not the CPDM will always win!" said 49-year-old Arbold Abena, heckling an activist from Mr Biya's party, the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement, in the capital Yaounde.
President Biya's term in office is due to come to an end in 2011.
"It is only now [at election time] you people acknowledge us. When it is time to eat, we are not there!" he added.
BBC correspondents say there are reports he wants to maintain his big majority to enact reforms allowing an extension of his rule.
Opposition flagging
The opposition says indelible ink used to mark those who have already voted easily washes off and that some people have been refused ballot papers.
Mr Biya's critics say he has presided over a repressive system.
"These are all indications that the election is being rigged already," John Fru Ndi, chairman of the main opposition SDF party, told the Reuters news agency.
Cameroon has also regularly featured high on the list of the most corrupt states in the world in tables drawn up by Transparency International.
He added: "We have learnt that Biya wants to modify the constitution to run for a third term. This we cannot allow to happen."
But Mr Biya's supporters say he has held Cameroon together and in peace.
Mr Biya's critics say he has presided over a repressive system. They say there was also widespread fraud in the ballots in 2002 and 1997.
President Paul Biya is rumoured to want another term in office
But his supporters say he has held Cameroon together and in peace.
He has kept power partly by spreading the political patronage that Cameroon's crude oil exports have financed, and by co-opting opposition parties which appear to have lost some of their dynamism in recent years, says the BBC's world affairs correspondent Mark Doyle.
Cameroon's borders have been closed and businesses shut for the election.
President Biya's latest term of office comes to an end in 2011.
Opposition parties say many of their candidates have not been allowed to run, but that they cannot afford to boycott the election.
"We have learnt that Biya wants to modify the constitution to run for a third term," John Fru Ndi, chairman of the main opposition SDF party, told Reuters.
