Chadians vote Monday to end three years of military power in a presidential election that boils down to an unprecedented duel between the head of the junta, General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, and his Prime Minister Succès Masra, a former opponent who rallied to his diet.
But, in tune with an opposition violently repressed and excluded from the race, which calls for a boycott of a vote “predicted in advance” to perpetuate a “Deby dynasty” of three decades, international organizations for the defense of human rights cast doubt the sincerity and credibility of the election.
At the start of the campaign, all observers predicted a massive victory for transitional President Déby after he had removed all his most dangerous rivals.
But the economist Masra, accused by his former opposition allies of being a “traitor” rallied to the Déby system and a true-false candidate to “give a democratic veneer” to the vote, appeared at the end of the campaign as a possible spoilsport. Capable of at least pushing the general to a second round, by drawing large crowds to his meetings.
Polling stations scattered across this vast Central African country, semi-desert or desert over 80% of its surface, open from 6:00 a.m. (5:00 a.m. GMT) to 5:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. GMT), for more than 8.2 million voters. registered. In the fourth least developed country in the world, according to the UN.
“First round”
At the last meetings on Saturday, in front of large crowds, Déby and Masra, aged 40, each said they were convinced of being elected in the first round. Eight other candidates can only hope for crumbs, because they are little known or deemed not very hostile to power.
On April 20, 2021, after having reigned for 30 years with an iron fist over Chad, Marshal Idriss Déby Itno was killed, on his way to the front, by one of the countless rebellions that have raged since independence from France in 1960 Fifteen of his loyal generals proclaimed his son Mahamat president of an 18-month transition.
He was immediately dubbed by an international community – France and the African Union (AU) in the lead – quick to condemn and sanction the putschist soldiers elsewhere in Africa, on the main grounds that Chad is reputed to be the regional pillar of the war against the jihadists in the Sahel.
But 18 months later, the junta extended the transition by two years and the military shot dead more than 300 young people according to NGOs, around fifty according to the government, who were demonstrating against this extension. More than a thousand were deported to a penal colony in the middle of the desert, and dozens executed or tortured, according to NGOs.
The main opposition leaders were hunted down and some – including Mr Masra – fled into exile.
“Murdered”
One of them, who remained in the country, Yaya Dillo Djérou, cousin and main rival of General Déby for the presidential election, was killed on February 28 by soldiers attacking his party headquarters. “Assassinated”, “shot in the head at close range”, according to the opposition and international NGOs.
On Friday, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) expressed concern about an “election which seems neither credible, nor free, nor democratic”, “in a deleterious context marked by (…) the multiplication of violations of human rights”, including Dillo’s death.
The same day, the NGO International Crisis Group (ICG) also expressed “doubts about the credibility of the vote” after the ouster of candidates from a “muzzled political opposition”. Mr. Déby, “big favorite, has no significant opponent apart from Succès Masra” but the latter, appointed Prime Minister four months ago by Mr. Déby, lost “a significant part of his voters considering that he has become a foil,” concludes ICG.
The two NGOs also question the “independence” of the two institutions responsible for organizing the vote and proclaiming the results, whose members were appointed by Mr. Déby: the Constitutional Council – which had invalidated ten candidates including the replacement of Mr. Dillo — and the National Election Management Agency (ANGE).
“The new electoral code removed the obligation to display (counting) reports outside polling stations and allows results to be published only at the regional level, which will prevent observers from consolidating the results. results by polling station to verify the figures”, regrets ICG.
