14, April 2021
Benin’s Talon reelected president with 86 percent of vote 0
Benin’s President Patrice Talon was easily re-elected to a second term, provisional results showed Tuesday, after a weekend election critics said was already stacked in his favour following a crackdown on his opponents.
Talon, a cotton tycoon first elected to lead the West African state in 2016, faced two little-known rivals in Sunday’s vote with most of his key opponents in exile or disqualified from running.
Talon won 86.3 percent of the vote, the electoral commission said as it announced preliminary results, while his opponents Alassane Soumanou and Corentin Kohoue got 11.29 and 2.25 percent respectively.
Benin’s constitutional court must verify the final results.
Once praised as a vibrant multi-party democracy, critics say the former French colony has veered onto an authoritarian path under Talon with a steady campaign against his political foes.
Three international observer missions had already noted low turnout in the election, though they said the vote generally went ahead peacefully despite tensions and protests in the lead-up.
With the 62-year-old incumbent almost guaranteed victory, analysts had said voter turnout would be a key measure of his election success.
Turnout was 50.17 percent, the commission said.
Even before the announcement, for some Beninese the election results meant little.
“This election was just folklore,” said restaurant owner George Kpatchavi. “We are not waiting for the results because they were already known in advance. After the elections, everything will return to order.”
An association of civil society groups, which deployed more than 1,400 election observers, said in its preliminary statement Sunday that “attempts to pressurise, intimidate, threaten, corrupt or harass voters were observed across the entire country”.
Protests in north
Protests had blocked some routes in opposition strongholds in the centre and north of the country in the run-up to the election, leading to delays in the dispatch of electoral materials.
Two people were killed last week when troops fired live rounds into the air to break up an opposition protest blockading a major route in the central city of Save.
Benin has seen some economic successes under Talon, who promised a “KO” first-round win in Sunday’s election. Supporters have praised his projects to expand electricity and basic services.
But since Talon first came to power, critics say he has used a special economic crimes and terrorism court and electoral reforms as tools to disqualify the opposition.
Reckya Madougou, one opposition leader who was barred from running, was detained last month on accusations of plotting to disrupt the vote, a charge her lawyer said was politically motivated.
Earlier this month, a judge from the special court that ordered her detention said he had fled the country, denouncing political pressure to make rulings against Talon’s opponents.
Government officials dismissed claims the election was rigged to favour Talon and said exiled opposition leaders were trying to have the vote cancelled with a smear campaign.
Source: AFP
21, April 2021
Chad: Mahamat Idriss Deby, son of slain president, emerges as new strongman 0
The youthful general Mahamat Idriss Deby, who stood watch over his late father as head of the presidential guard, is set to take over as Chad’s new head of state, according to a charter released Wednesday by the presidency.
The presidency moved swiftly to put the reins of power in the hands of the 37-year-old general and tear up Chad’s constitution, establishing a “Transition Charter” that lays out a new basic law for the desert country of 16 million people.
The new charter issued Wednesday proclaimed that Mahamat, a career soldier like his father, will “occupy the functions of the president of the republic” and also serve as head of the armed forces.
Mahamat had already been named the head of a military council on Tuesday soon after the announcement of Deby’s death in combat, a move that sidelined other political institutions in Chad and has been branded a coup d’etat by opposition groups.
The four-star general was not on any list of heirs to the throne drawn up by experts, who said they believed the veteran warlord and president had not chosen a successor and seemed to worry little about it.
But Mahamat immediately took charge of a transitional military council and appointed 14 of the most trusted generals to a junta to run Chad until “free and democratic” elections in 18-months time.
Commander in chief of the all-powerful red-bereted presidential guard or DGSSIE security service for state institutions, he carries the nickname Mahamat “Kaka” or grandmother in Chadian Arabic, after his father’s mother who raised him.
“The man in black glasses”, as he is known in military circles, is said to be a discreet, quiet officer who looks after his men.
A career soldier, just like his father, he is from the Zaghawa ethnic group which can boast of numerous top officers in an army seen as one of the finest in the region.
“He has always been at his father’s side. He also led the DGSSIE. The army has gone for continuity in the system,” Kelma Manatouma, a Chadian political science researcher at Paris-Nanterre university, told AFP.
However over recent months the unity of the Zaghawas has fractured and the president has removed several suspect officers, sources close to the palace said.
Born to a mother from the Sharan Goran ethnic group, he also married a Goran, Dahabaye Oumar Souny, a journalist at the presidential press service. She is the daughter of a senior official who was close to former president Hissene Habre, ousted by Idriss Deby in 1990.
The Zaghawa community thus look with some suspicion on Mahamat, some regional experts say.
Challenges ahead
“He is far too young and not especially liked by other officers,” said Roland Marchal, from the International Research Centre at Sciences Po university in Paris.
“There is bound to be a night of the long knives,” Marchal predicted in an interview with AFP.
The rebel forces who have been blamed for Deby’s death have also vowed to press on with their offensive, categorically rejecting the transition of power.
“Chad is not a monarchy,” said a statement from the group known as the Front for Change and Concord in Chad. “There can be no dynastic devolution of power in our country.”
Brought up by his paternal grandmother in N’Djamena, Mahamat was sent to a military lycee in Aix-en-Provence, southern France, but stayed only a few months.
Back home in Chad, he returned to training at the military group school in the capital and joined the presidential guard.
He rose quickly through the command structure from an armoured group to head of security at the presidential palace before taking over the whole DGSSIE structure.
Mahamat was acclaimed for his efforts at the final victory in 2009 at Am-Dam against the forces of nephew Timan Erdimi’s forces. Those forces had launched a rebellion in the east and had reached the gates of the presidential palace a year earlier, before being pushed back after French intervention.
He finally moved out of the shadow of his brother Abdelkerim Idriss Deby, deputy director of the presidential office, when he was appointed deputy chief of the Chadian armed force deployed to Mali in 2013.
That brought Mahamat to work closely with French troops in operation Serval against the jihadists in 2013-14.
“It is hard to imagine France allowing the country to slip into chaos and not supporting Deby’s successor,” regional specialist Vincent Hugueux told FRANCE 24, stressing Chad’s crucial role as France’s main ally in the fight against jihadist insurgents in the wider region.
The French presidency has announced that President Emmanuel Macron will attend Deby’s state funeral on Friday.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)