Why does this election matter?
Chad’s election on May 6 appears to offer voters a choice. But it’s been masterminded, analysts say, to produce a single outcome: to rubber-stamp the rule of the incumbent, Mahamat Idriss Déby, who is seeking to transform himself from military leader to civilian president.
Mr. Déby seized power three years ago after his father, Idriss Déby, who ruled Chad with an iron fist for three decades, was killed — apparently on the battlefield, fighting rebels trying to overthrow his government. His son’s succession to the presidency was a clear violation of the country’s Constitution.
Chad is a landlocked, arid country of 18 million people in Central Africa. Despite its wealth of natural resources, it is one of the world’s poorest nations.
Nevertheless, it is sheltering hundreds of thousands of refugees from the war in neighboring Sudan.
Chad is also part of a belt of African countries to have experienced coups in the past four years, stretching from coast to coast.
And it’s the first of the junta-led countries to hold an election. Mali’s government keeps delaying its promised vote. Last year Burkina Faso’s military president, Ibrahim Traore, indefinitely postponed an election planned for July 2024, saying it was “not a priority.” There is no end in sight for Guinea’s supposedly transitional government.
Chad has built a reputation as a dependable security partner for Western countries in their fight against Islamist militants, at a time when other countries are pushing out Western allies. It’s hosting hundreds of French troops after they were kicked out of neighboring Niger, and some American ones.