AI-Generated Images Used in Cameroon 2025 Presidential Election Campaign
Multiple political parties in Cameroon's October 2025 presidential election used AI-generated images in campaign materials to exaggerate crowd sizes and support, including falsified photos of candidate rallies and public appearances, reportedly marking a shift from fringe activist use to official campaign team deployment.
What happened
The Social Democratic Front (SDF), the Mouvement patriotique pour la prospérité du peuple (MP3), and campaign materials attributed to President Paul Biya all used AI-generated images in the October 2025 Cameroon presidential election.
Images of SDF candidate Joshua Osih showed duplicated faces and visual inconsistencies typical of AI generation, with a visible Google Gemini logo. MP3 distributed an AI-generated image of candidate Hiram Iyodi on social media. President Biya's campaign video contained AI-generated imagery.
Reported impact
The images were created to give false impressions of large crowd attendance and popular support at campaign events, with the same faces duplicated across photos to exaggerate rally attendance.
Index analysis
The use of AI-generated images by official campaign teams marks a shift from previous election cycles when such disinformation was primarily deployed by fringe activists or individual supporters. An international study documented that 80% of countries holding elections in 2024 experienced election-related incidents involving generative AI tools.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
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