General Mahamat Idriss Déby, 40 years old and leader of the military junta that carried out a coup d’état three years ago, was the winner of the elections held last Monday in Chad with 61% of the votes, as announced this Thursday by the night the National Agency for Election Management (ANGE). His great rival in these elections and prime minister of the transition, opposition leader Succès Masra, comes in second place with 18.5% of the ballots. However, he has rejected the provisional results, claiming that it is a “fraud” and has called for protests for this Friday. The participation rate was 75.8%.
“From now on I am the elected president of all Chadians, both those who voted for me and those who chose another option,” Déby said this Thursday night in a short televised speech, in which he thanked them for their support. received and committed to putting his electoral promises into action. Thousands of party members and his followers, including many soldiers who fired into the air, took to the streets to celebrate his victory. Déby had been the president of the transition since April 2021, when he came to power through a coup d’état following the death of his father and his former president, Idriss Déby.
However, tension hovers over the process and defense and security forces have been deployed in N’Djamena, the capital, and other cities because hours before the results were announced, Masra made a public statement in which he proclaimed himself the winner of the elections in the first round and warned that his opponent wanted to “rob the people of their victory.” In his speech, he also claimed that “a small number of individuals are confident that they can make people believe that the elections were won by the same system that has been ruling Chad for decades.” “To all Chadians who voted for change, who voted for me, I say: mobilize. Do it calmly, in a spirit of peace,” he added.
In the previous days, the opposition leader had reported difficulties in accessing the electoral records, as well as threats and arbitrary arrests suffered by his supporters. The provisional figures, which still must be validated by the Constitutional Court, give third place to the opponent Albert Pahimi Padacké with 16.9% of the votes. He, however, accepted the scrutiny and congratulated Déby.
The ANGE had until May 21 to publish the provisional results, a period of time established based on the logistical difficulties for a country like Chad. However, this body, in charge of organizing the scrutiny, decided to advance the figures this Thursday, motivated, according to sources familiar with the process, by Masra’s victory announcement. Many observers have expressed surprise at the speed of the count. The elections had taken place in relative calm, according to the observation mission of the Economic Community of Central African States (Ceeac).
The elections have caused a new rift between Déby and Masra. The opposition leader, at the head of the Transformers party, had become a real headache for Déby during the first two years of the transition. The rivalry between the two crystallized on October 20, 2022, when tens of thousands of Chadians summoned by Masra took to the streets to protest against the regime and were violently repressed, resulting in at least 200 deaths. The opposition leader opted for the path of exile until in November 2023 he reached an agreement with Déby, he returned to the country and was named prime minister.
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