In Chad, the Constitutional Council has officially confirmed Mahamat Idriss Deby as the winner of the presidential election held on May 6, despite challenges from opposition candidates. Deby, who took power in 2021 following the death of his father, former President Idriss Deby, secured a commanding 61% of the vote, according to the council’s findings.
Opposition leader Succes Masra, who came in second in the election, received 18.54% of the vote. After the council’s ruling, Masra gave a speech to the country in which he admitted that all legal options for contesting the outcome had been exhausted, even if he did not accept the outcome. In his broadcast remarks, Masra declared, “We have employed all possible legal methods, and even if we do not agree this verdict, there are no other legal means in our judicial architecture.”
Chad, a significant oil-producing country in West and Central Africa’s Sahel, continues to be a vital ally of the West in the fight against insurgencies associated with the Islamic State and al Qaeda. One of the region’s multiple coup-hit states is making a major effort with this election to return to democratic governance based on the constitution.
But there have been some controversial issues surrounding the election. Concerns regarding the election process were voiced by the US State Department. Speaking for the transitional administration, Matthew Miller emphasized a number of issues, including as the exclusion of thousands of observers from civil society and opposition parties from the polls and the electoral institutions’ lack of inclusivity. Miller welcomed the advancements made in Chad’s political situation in spite of these worries. “We applaud the significant turning points in Chad’s transition process, even though there were troubling shortcomings,” he said.
Violence followed the election, with reports from Amnesty International and local media indicating that celebratory gunfire killed at least ten people, including children, and injured several more. The assassination of Yaya Dillo, another opposition activist, on February 28, the day the election date was announced, added to the already tense environment. The opposition has denounced Dillo’s death as a politically motivated murder.
A boycott was called for by a number of opposition parties and civil society organizations before to the polls, on the grounds that Deby and his allies had excessive influence over the country’s key institutions of power, including the constitutional council, and might therefore unjustly affect the results of the election. The publishing of polling data was prohibited by the authorities in reaction to these conflicts.
Now that Deby has been confirmed as president, attention is turning to how his administration will handle the numerous internal obstacles and external demands to grow and stabilize Chad while preserving the vital foreign relationships in an unstable regional environment.
