Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno, re-elected at the weekend, may have swept to victory in a poll boycotted by his main opponents, but critics and rebels agreed on Monday he faces huge problems.
Results on Sunday night gave him a total of 77,53% of the votes cast on May 3, opening the way to a third five-year term. His four opponents were three political allies and a virtually unknown figure.
Even so, two of the losing candidates, seen as standing merely to provide the appearance of a genuine election, contested the results, arguing that they had done better than the official figures suggested and claiming ”manipulation”.
”The farce continues and costs us dear in terms of human lives, time and energy,” commented opposition member of Parliament Saleh Kebzabo, president of the National Union for Development and Renewal (UNDR), which boycotted the poll.
He said the election was a ”masquerade” and said the re-election of Déby, who seized power in 1990, was ”not legitimate”.
”For us there has not been an election,” he said.
The opposition boycotted a constitutional referendum in 2005, allowing Deby to seek a third presidential term and claimed that its call for a boycott of this month’s poll had been widely followed. International observers reported a low turnout.
Kebzabo said the official figure of a 61,49% turnout of the 5,7-million people entitled to vote was ”a complete fantasy”.
Déby and his supporters have claimed the outcome amounted to a rejection of the political opposition and the rebel United Front for Change (FUC), which attacked N’djamena three weeks before the election and vowed to disrupt it.
”I pay homage to the Chadian people, a mature people, a people which has won by being politically mature. The people have made their choice, and it’s me,” Déby told reporters.
”With this victory you have proved wrong those who said yesterday [Sunday] that Chad will explode and prove once again that democracy works in Chad and that it is progressing,” said Déby.
Nonetheless, the future for Déby (54) is anything but bright.
FUC spokesperson Albissaty Saleh Allazam told Agence France-Presse the rebels consider the poll ”null and void” and that their aim of overthrowing Déby remains intact.
Déby can expect to come under growing pressure from the international community to enter into a ”dialogue” with the opposition.
The United States and the African Union called on him to postpone the election and France, his chief backer, which maintains 1 000 troops in Chad, also wants talks now he has been re-elected.
But there appears to be little common ground.
”The constitutional council should validate the result in the next two weeks and then the president will be installed on August 8,” said Mahamat Hissene, secretary general of Déby’s MPS party.
”If by then there is a frank dialogue, if we can agree on a programme for the future of the country, we are ready to welcome opponents into the government in an agreed framework.”
”If we want dialogue, it isn’t to go into government,” said Saleh Kebzabo. ”There has to be a forum with all the elements of Chadian society, including the politico-military ones. And then a new election.” — AFP
