An uneasy calm has descended on Chad, where the opposition is demanding the immediate end of the country’s transitional government and the cancellation of December. In the general elections of 2019, the opposition says that it was strongly boycotted. Chad’s election management body has promised to count the votes and announce the results, saying irregularities cannot affect the results.
Assane Barra, vice president of Chad’s national election management agency (ANGE), said vote counting is underway following the central African state’s local, provincial and parliamentary elections on Sunday.
The elections were scheduled to end Chad’s three-year transition period following the death of longtime President Idriss Deby Itno in April 2021. The late president’s son, Mahamat Idriss Deby, was declared the winner of the presidential election in May.
Provisional results of the latest elections are expected by January 15, ANGE said.
Assane said ANGE has successfully executed its mission to conclude the transitional period by conducting free, fair and transparent elections. The election body said about 36% of Chad’s estimated 8.3 million registered voters took part in Sunday’s vote.
But opposition parties say turnout was very low, adding that citizens largely respected the opposition’s call for a mass boycott.
Avxouma Jona is the spokesperson for Chad’s Political Actors Consultation Group, or GCAP, a coalition of several dozen political parties. At a news conference in the capital on Monday, N’Djamena said more than 90% of the approximately 8.3 million registered voters followed GCAP’s call for a boycott. They did so because citizens learned from Chad’s May 6 presidential elections that Déby wanted to extend his late father’s long rule. Avoxouma said Chadians are angry because Déby is a dictator who silences all critical voices.
In a statement on Monday, Succes Massara, president of The Transformers, one of Chad’s leading opposition political parties, called for a new transition. He said that to lay the foundation of a stable and inclusive political system, it must be marked by truth, dialogue and reconciliation.
Masara, who served as prime minister under transitional President Déby, said ongoing tensions in the Central African state could explode into violence and social conflict.
Avoxouma said he was confident that despite the mass boycott, ANGE would still declare Déby’s ruling Patriotic Liberation Movement as the December winners. 29 elections.
Before the vote, opposition parties accused Déby of rigging the election, a charge Déby denied.
Yamingue Bettinbaye is a political analyst at the University of N’Djamena. He spoke to VOA via a messaging group on Monday.
The analyst told VOA that although the opposition has legitimate claims that the boycott was widespread and that there were irregularities, including stuffing of ballot boxes, to rig Déby’s election, it is unlikely that the election will be canceled as requested by the opposition. .
The Chadian government said that the cancellation of the election and calls for new change were aimed at creating chaos and plunging Chad into violence. The government said citizens should not follow the opposition’s calls to destabilize their country by taking to the streets to protest.
