Chad Opposition Protests Final Election Results Won By Transitional President’s Party

Yaounde, Cameroon — Chad’s Constitutional Council has ignored opposition calls to set aside results of last month’s parliamentary elections for gross irregularities and fraud, and proclaimed the ruling party of Chad’s president, Field Marshal Mahamat Idriss Deby, the winner.

Officials said nominations for senatorial elections to end the transition are open, but the opposition insisted another transitional government should be formed and transparent elections organized to end the three-decade Deby family rule.

Officials in Chad said opposition leaders assembled Wednesday in the capital, N’djamena, to protest the election results published Tuesday by the Constitutional Council, the central African nation’s highest court.

Clement Sianka, spokesperson of Chad’s National Assembly of Democrats, an opposition political party that participated in the Dec. 29 polls, said he took part in the protest because his party is surprised that the council refused to annul the elections he said were marred by fraud, low voter participation and intimidation of civilians Chad’s military considered to be opposition supporters.

Sianka said that by ordering government troops to chase opposition party representatives from polling stations, Deby, who in December declared himself as field marshal, the highest rank in Chad’s military, once more sent a strong message to civilians that he wants to take power at any cost and continue the three-decade rule begun by his father, Idriss Deby Itno.

Sianka said fraud was alarming, with ballot boxes confiscated and stuffed by supporters of Deby’s Patriotic Salvation Movement, or MPS, party in front of helpless civilians. He said the MPS party declared its candidates as winners in towns and villages where civilians obeyed opposition boycott calls and elections did not take place.

Sianka spoke on Chad’s state TV on Wednesday.

According to the final results published by the country’s Constitutional Council on Tuesday, the MPS won 124 seats in the 188-member National Assembly.

Sixty-four women were voted in as lawmakers, according to the official results, an increase of 36 women over Chad’s last legislative period, which ended in 2011.

Officials say financial difficulties have made it impossible for legislative polls to be held since 2011.

The opposition said the polls, the first in over a decade, should be set aside because most of Chad’s roughly 8.3 million voters heeded opposition calls for a boycott. There were no indications the polls were to be free, fair and transparent as civilians already knew that Deby wanted to confiscate power, Chad’s opposition said.

However, Chad’s Constitutional Council said voter turnout was over 50%, and the elections were peaceful with no major incidents that could affect the outcome of polls.

Chad’s Political Actors Consultation Group, or GCAP, a coalition of several dozen political parties, on Wednesday said democracy was stifled during Chad’s three-year transition period. GCAP said Deby, who took power as a military ruler in 2021, persecutes critical opposition leaders to maintain the rule of his father. Idriss Deby spent three decades in power until he died while fighting rebels in April 2021.

GCAP said Deby should hand power to a civilian capable of managing another transition during which transparent elections will be organized for a return to democratic rule. The group did not say who they think will manage the transition are advocating.

Chad’s opposition also accused the elections management body of rigging elections to favor Deby, who appoints and can fire the elections management body’s officials.

Chad’s Constitutional Council has neglected calls for an immediate end to the country’s transitional government and the cancellation of the Dec. 29 elections. The council says such calls are intended to bring chaos in Chad.

On Wednesday the National Agency for the Management of Elections or ANGE reiterated calls on qualified civilians to prepare their nomination papers before a Jan. 24 deadline and run in the country’s first senatorial elections, to be organized in April.

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Officials say the senatorial election will be the last polls to be organized by the transitional government in its efforts to hand power over to civilian rule.

Ahmed Bartchiret, president of ANGE, said ANGE will not accept intimidation by opposition parties that want to disrupt Chad’s unity and create chaos. He said ANGE will organize free, fair and transparent elections as it freely organized a constitutional referendum and presidential elections to hand over power to civilian rule as desired by the peace-loving people of Chad.

Chad’s opposition has always contested the outcome of elections since Deby became transitional president. Deby said he respects the verdict of the ballot and called on civilians to work with democratically elected officials for the development of Chad.

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