Election: General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno elected president of Chad

General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, proclaimed Chadian head of state three years ago by the army, won Monday’s presidential election with 61.03% of the vote, according to provisional official results from the electoral commission on Thursday.

He beat his prime minister Succès Masra who only received 18.53% of the votes, according to these results which must be validated by the Constitutional Council. Shortly after the announcement of these results, soldiers fired automatic weapons into the air in the capital N’Djamena, out of joy and obviously to dissuade people from gathering, AFP journalists reported.

Success Masra had affirmed earlier in the evening that he was elected in the first round, accusing in advance the camp of Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno of having rigged the results to proclaim him elected.

“Mobilize peacefully”

The compilation of the results by his own camp “confirms the victory in the first round, that of change over the status quo,” Succès Masra announced in a long speech on its Facebook page. “The victory is resounding and unblemished.”

“Chadians, mobilize peacefully, calmly (…) to prove your victory,” he said. This election must mark the end of a three-year military transition and many observers believed that just 10 days ago it was a foregone conclusion in favor of the young 40-year-old general.

But the economist Succès Masra, also 40 years old, surprised everyone by gathering considerable crowds during his campaign, to the point of becoming emboldened and saying he was capable of winning, if not of pushing Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno as far as in a second round scheduled for June 22.

The announcement of the results by the National Election Management Agency (ANGE), composed and appointed by the military power, was anticipated by 12 days on the official calendar, leaving room for all speculation. On Monday, eight other candidates competed against Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno and Succès Masra but, little known or deemed not very hostile to power, they had no chance of grabbing more than a few votes.

Election “neither free nor credible”

After 30 years of ruling Chad with an iron fist, Marshal Idriss Déby Itno was killed by rebels in April 2021 on his way to the front, and the army immediately proclaimed his son Mahamat transitional president at the head of a junta of 15 generals.

Three years later, the young general tried to legitimize his presidency at the polls. Many observers predicted until recently that it would be a formality, as for his father, officially elected and re-elected comfortably six times after his 1990 coup.

But international NGOs have expressed doubts about an election “neither free nor credible” after the junta had violently repressed, even bloodily, all opposition and removed General Déby’s most serious rivals from the presidential race.

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AFP

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