Chad headed into presidential elections Sunday with Idriss Deby Itno, ruler for the last three decades, set to win a sixth term.

A key ally in the West’s anti-jihadist campaign in the Sahel, Deby, 68, is the frontrunner in a six-candidate race without major rivals after a campaign in which demonstrations were banned or dispersed.

Queueing to vote in the capital N’Djamena, a 25-year-old saleswoman named Bernadette told AFP she was voting for Deby because “thanks to him I am free to walk wherever I want, day or night, in total security”.

Polling booths and ballot boxes were arriving progressively in the city, with numerous polling stations visited by AFP failing to open on time.

Police and soldiers were out in force across N’Djamena, with elite troops from the Republican Guard deployed to the central polling station where Deby himself was due to vote, an AFP journalist said.

Chad has struggled with poverty and instability since gaining independence from France in 1960.

A former rebel and career soldier who seized power in a coup in 1990, Deby has twice, with French help, thwarted attempts to oust him.

Other candidates include Albert Pahimi Padacke, a former prime minister under Deby, and Felix Nialbe Romadoumngar — officially “leader of the opposition” as his URD party has eight seats in the National Assembly.

Lydie Beassemda, a former agriculture minister, is the first woman to run for president in Chad’s history.

She is pitching her campaign on federalism, in a country where ethnic rivalry is common, and on women’s rights, in a culture where patriarchal domination is entrenched.

But seven other candidates were rejected by the Supreme Court and three withdrew, including longtime opposition politician Saleh Kebzabo, who quit in protest over violence by the security forces.

Soldiers killed in Lake Chad ambush

Deby has campaigned on a promise of peace and security in a region that has been rocked by jihadist insurgencies.

Two Chadian soldiers were killed Thursday in an ambush in the Lake Chad region, where Islamist extremists have been increasingly attacking civilians and security forces, Communications Minister Cherif Mahamat Zene told AFP on Sunday.

Provisional results from the elections are scheduled for April 25, with the final results due on May 15.

With Deby set for victory, the major question mark is over turnout.

Deby urged voters at his final rally on Friday to “turn out massively”, but many residents have voiced disinterest in an election whose outcome already appears certain.

Some 7.3 million people are eligible to vote out of a population of 15 million, but the most critical opposition parties have urged voters to boycott the election.

Weekly protest marches urging a peaceful transfer of power have been banned or forcefully dispersed.

On February 28, police and soldiers carried out a commando-style raid on the home of a prominent would-be candidate, Yaya Dillo Djerou. His mother was among at least three people killed, and he is now on the run.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres are among those who have voiced criticism.

US watching

The United States on Thursday urged Chad’s election supervisors and courts “to ensure these elections are conducted freely, fairly, and transparently”.

“We’ll be watching in the days ahead,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price warned.

Deby has also benefited, as previously, from divisions and weaknesses within opposition ranks.

Francois Djekombe, president of the opposition Sacred Union for the Republic, said efforts to mobilise the public had been weakened by internal squabbles, poor leadership and inadequate communications.

“Let us humbly acknowledge that we have failed,” he said ahead of polling day. “It’s clear that people don’t want the popular revolt that we tried to impose.”

Kelma Manatouma, a Chad expert at the University of Paris-Nanterre, said that “with the considerable means Deby has mobilised, it is certain he will win.”

Chad has been an oil producer since 2003, but it remains deeply poor.

In 2018, 42 percent of the population lived below the poverty line, according to the World Bank. In 2020, Chad ranked 187th out of 189 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index.

(AFP)

The Horn of African country of Djibouti is going to the polls on Friday as President Ismail Omar Guelleh seeks a fifth term in the small but strategically important nation home to military bases for the United States, China and others.

The 73-year-old Guelleh faces just one challenger, the independent candidate Zakaria Ismail Farah, who halted campaigning early while asserting that he could not do so in safety. In protest, he appeared with his mouth taped shut.

Critics call the president a heavy-handed dictator, but others in Djibouti see him as a driving force in the country’s development and relative stability. The country is located on the Red Sea along one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Guelleh has been in power since 1999 after the death of his predecessor, Hassan Guled Aptidon, the country’s first president. Djibouti won independence from France in 1977.

Guelleh told reporters days ago that he was no longer interested in power but was merely responding to the will of the people.

“It is my people, the Djiboutians, who asked me to run again and not leave them for the sake of the prosperity of the nation,” he said.

More than 205,000 people are registered to vote in Djibouti, which has a population of over 600,000. The country is a mix of ethnic Somali, Afar and Arab.

(AP)

In a familiar pattern than continues to be repeated, President Idriss Déby looks set to be elected for yet another term in Chad following this Sunday’s presidential elections. In power since 1990, this will be the 68-year-old incumbent’s sixth term.

President Déby’s victory at the ballot box may be all but assured, but that’s not to say he doesn’t face significant opposition. When he was nominated to be the ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement’s flagbearer this February, the announcement sparked widespread demonstrations. In the capital N’Djamena and other major cities, protesters took to the streets chanting “no to a sixth term!” and “Leave, Déby!”.

The government has responded with force. Authorities arrested hundreds of protesters. They charged several with assault and disturbing the public order. In anticipation of more street action, authorities also imposed a blanket ban on protests. Internet restrictions are expected to follow.

This is all characteristic of Déby’s repressive rule and management of the upcoming elections. For years, his government has overseen sustained attacks against human rights defenders, opposition politicians and journalists. One of Chad’s most prominent human rights defender, Baradine Berdeï Targuio, has been detained since January 2020 charged with “subversive activities on social media”. In November 2020, security forces surrounded the premises of several opposition parties and civil society groups, and raided private radio stations including Radio FM Liberté.

Amid this increasingly unequal playing filed, Chad’s main opposition leader, Saleh Kebzabo, quit the presidential race in early-March. His decision came shortly after two people were killed as security forces tried to arrest his fellow opposition leader Yaya Dillo.

A regional problem

Since he came to power via a coup in 1990, President Déby has won every election and amended the constitution twice to facilitate his stay in power. His 2005 constitutional revision removed the two-term limit. The 2018 amendments re-imposed it, but ensured it would not apply retroactively while also extending presidential mandates from five years to six. This means Déby could now stay in power until 2033.

This determination to cling onto power, along with the brutal treatment of opponents, is consistent with the broader picture in Central Africa. Throughout this region, politics has been militarised and electoral periods are characterised by violence and instability. Authorities target anyone who speaks out – from human rights organisations and the political opposition to trade unions – and presidents maintain a tight grip on power.

Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang and Cameroon’s Paul Biya are two of the world’s longest serving presidents, having been in office for 42 and 39 years respectively. The Republic of Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo is referred to by some as an “Emperor”, having ruled for 36 years over two periods. Gabon’s Ali Bongo has been president for a comparatively brief 12 years but was preceded by his father who ruled for the 42 years before that.

Along with undemocratic and repressive domestic policies, several Central African leaders’ stays in power have been made possible by international complicity. Chad is a strategic US ally in the campaign against Islamist insurgencies in the Chad Basin. Cameroon, Congo and Gabon are among the last bastions of French influence in Francophone Africa. The Central African Republic has presented a useful opportunity for Russia to expand its international standing.

These alliances of convenience have often provided authoritarian governments with crucial support and funding – some of which has financed security forces that then commit the same kinds of abuses as the groups they are meant to be targeting – while also shielding undemocratic leaders from international censure.

Pushing back

As seen in Chad, people across Central Africa are not staying silent. Civil society groups in the Congo and Cameroon, for example, are increasingly speaking out against state excesses and calling for political reforms, starting with free and fair elections and adherence to term limits. Despite the risks, protests against rising costs of living, increasing inequality and the monopolisation of power by ruling elites are growing. Repeats of Sudan’s 2019 uprising, which ended Omar al-Bashir’s three-decade reign, cannot be ruled out.

To support these movements and help reverse Central Africa’s authoritarian trend, regional and international civil society organisations should start building networks across the region. They should bolster groups that work on the ground to encourage people and governments to move towards democracy. At the same time, they should demand that foreign governments look beyond their own narrow strategic interests and recognise the impact of the militarisation of politics and the use of violence against civil society, the media and opposition.

Without this support, local civil society will struggle to push back against authoritarian leaders. They need broader support as they attempt to prevent leaders like President Déby extending his undemocratic rule and, in the longer-term, resist the plans of ageing presidents to follow in Gabon’s footsteps by converting their individual reign into dynastic rule, further extending the cycle of human rights violations and repression.

Culled from African Arguments

The most powerful of the Central African Republic’s armed groups said in a statement Monday it will quit a rebel coalition aiming to unseat President Faustin Archange Touadera.

The Unity for Peace in Central Africa (UPC), mainly active in the country’s east, “commits to withdraw from the Coalition of Patriots for Change” (CPC), the group’s head Ali Darassa wrote.

The coalition is an alliance of some of the war-torn country’s most powerful armed groups, who joined together on December 19 accusing Touadera, the frontrunner in the December 27 elections, of trying to fix the vote.

Its components were drawn from militia groups that, together, controlled two-thirds of the impoverished country.

Touadera was reelected with barely one in three voters able to cast their ballot because rebel groups control most of the country.

Darassa said Monday that since the “electoral crisis, the population has suffered terribly from insecurity, the health situation, famine and the lack of humanitarian assistance.”

The UPC, the statement continued, “reiterates its commitment to the Khartoum Accord process,” a peace agreement signed in February 2019 between the government and 14 armed groups.

Surge in violence

Tensions have been high in the Central African Republic since the December election, although the surge in violence in recent months is just the latest flare-up in a civil war that has lasted eight years since the ouster of president Francois Bozize.

More than 30,000 people have fled the country due to the violence surrounding the elections, the UN says, while tens of thousands more have been internally displaced.

On January 13, rebels launched twin attacks on the outskirts of the capital — the first time they had struck so close to the city since the start of their offensive.

But their offensive foundered faced with government forces backed by 12,000 UN peacekeepers force, Russian paramilitaries and Rwandan troops.

Since January, the government and its allies have recaptured towns once held by fighters from the alliance of militias.

Bangui has accused Bozize, now the head of the CPC, of attempting a coup.

The UPC announcement came just days after another powerful group in the CPC announced that its chief had died from wounds suffered during an attack, in another blow to the rebel alliance.

Sidiki Abass, head of Return, Reclamation and Rehabilitation (3R), died on March 25, the rebel group announced Friday.

Abass, whose real name was Bi Sidi Souleymane, died in hospital in the country’s north, 3R said in a statement, adding he had been “seriously wounded” during attacks in the town of Bossembele on November 16.

The 3R group is made up largely of the Fulani ethnic group, whose members are traditionally nomadic herders.

Abass’s group has in the past been accused of war crimes, and judicial sources said he had been the target of an investigation by the country’s Special Criminal Court, set up to probe serious human rights violations committed since 2003.

Mineral-rich but rated the world’s second-poorest country on the Human Development Index, the CAR has been chronically unstable since independence 60 years ago.

Source: AFP