Newly re-elected Chadian president Idriss Déby dies after 31 years in power
General Azem Bermandou Agouna, spokesman for the Chadian army, has announced the death of the recently re-elected President Idriss Déby Itno. According to Chadian sources, the death was caused by injuries sustained on the battlefield during a Chadian army offensive on Monday night against rebels of the Front for Alternation and Concord in Chad (FACT) group near Mao, in the Kanem region, north of the capital. The president's death comes a day after the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) announced the results of the first round of the presidential elections held on 11 April, which, with 79.32% of the votes, gave him the victory. The president was running for the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MSP) party.
Apart from delays in the opening of some polling stations and despite a lower than expected turnout, the election day took place without incident. However, while the counting was taking place, there were several clashes in the north of the country between the Chadian army and the armed group FACT, led by Mahamat Mahdi Ali. Yesterday the Chadian military authorities announced that the rebels had been contained after 300 militiamen and five soldiers were killed. However, the group's leader, Ali, claimed in a statement that his troops still control several towns north of N'Djamena and that the president was wounded during the fighting. This information could not be verified until the general's announcement due to the impossibility of gaining access to the ground. It is now confirmed that it was during these military operations that the Chadian president was mortally wounded.
According to General Agouna's statement, a military council has already been established to ensure a peaceful transition, headed by Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, one of the late president's sons, a four-star general and commander of the presidential national guard. The council has already met and promulgated a transition charter that has not yet been published.
The Chadian president had been one of France's main supporters in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel.
On 19 April the Chadian electoral commission announced the provisional results of the first round, which gave victory to the recently deceased President Idriss Déby Itno. Although he had been in power since the 1990 coup d'état, he was first democratically elected president on 3 July 1996. This was the sixth time that the president won the elections without even having to go through the second round.
Chad's last prime minister, Albert Pahimi Padacké for the RNDT - le Réveil party, also ran in these last elections and came second with 10.32% of the vote. The first woman to run in the presidential election, Lydie Beassemda, came third with 3.16% of the vote. The other five official candidates received less than two percent of the vote. Although 10 candidates for the presidential elections were approved by the Chadian supreme court, three of them announced their withdrawal before the elections were held.
According to the electoral commission (CENI), the turnout was 64.81%. The fact that the turnout was so low came as no surprise as several opposition leaders had called for a widespread boycott of the elections. Some opposition members warned of violations and fraudulent behaviour before and after the elections, such as errors in voter registration. To ensure transparency in the elections, a biometric voter register had been added, but the week before the elections the newspaper Jeune Afrique warned of cases where Chadian minors had received a card to vote, or of other card frauds in which several cards with the same photo and different names had been printed. There were also problems with the distribution of the cards, as some cards did not arrive in time for the elections, with the electoral lists being published before many voters had received them. Despite the warning of these irregularities, election observers from the African Union and other regional organisations say that these anomalies are not enough to affect the credibility of the elections. Several opposition leaders have expressed their view that there are discrepancies between the reality on the ground and the election results.
