Legislative elections in Chad: ruling party wins majority of seats

“Thirty-eight political parties and groupings of political parties will be represented in the National Assembly,” declared the president of the National Election Management Agency (Ange) Ahmed Bartchiret.

At the end of December, some eight million Chadians went to the polls for legislative, provincial and local elections.

The electoral commission communicated the results province by province for the legislative and provincial elections without giving the distribution of seats and with several hours of delay. As of Sunday morning, the results of the municipal elections were still not available.

According to these documents, the MPS of Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno won 124 seats, while the opposition called for a boycott of the vote.

The National Rally of Chadian Democrats-Le Réveil (RNDT), party of former presidential candidate Albert Pahimi Padacké, obtained 11 seats, according to AFP calculations.

According to the Angel, the participation rate in the legislative and provincial elections is 51.56%.

“The ballots which were held on a Sunday, a day of worship for Christians and in the middle of the end-of-year holiday season”, explain why the voters mobilized “moderately”, for Mr. Bartchiret.

“The elections of December 29, 2024 took place generally in a satisfactory manner,” he concluded.

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The first opposition party, Les Transformateurs, had described the electoral process as a “resounding failure” due to a “massive boycott” which they had called for, predicting “prefabricated results”.

Accusations brushed aside by the MPS associating the boycott with a “destructive strategy”.

The Chadian electoral code provides for the possibility of contesting the election five days after the proclamation of the final results expected on February 3.

The Assembly was to be renewed in 2015 but there were several successive postponements justified by the jihadist threat, financial difficulties, the coronavirus epidemic and the transition which followed the military putsch after the death of Marshal Déby senior, killed by rebels after 30 years of unchallenged power.

Then, a transitional parliament was designated by presidential decree in 2021.

Receiving his title of marshal on December 21, the head of state affirmed that his accession to power had “saved the country from falling into chaos”.

The opposition considers the regime autocratic and repressive.