Chad opposition party to boycott legislative vote
Chad’s opposition Transformers party has said it will not run in the country’s legislative and local elections on December 29 because the result was decided in advance, according to AFP.
Succes Masra, one of President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno’s fiercest opponents, claimed victory in the May presidential election in which he secured 18.5% of the vote, after alleging Deby’s team would rig the result.
“The Transformers will not participate in the legislative elections in December,” Masra told supporters at a ceremony for victims of anti-junta protests two years ago.
“To participate in these elections amounts to condoning a result that has already been entered in the computers of the opposing camp,” the 41-year-old economist, who was for a while prime minister under Deby, said.
After a new constitution was approved in a referendum in December, Deby, 40, was elected president in May in voting that the opposition boycotted and international observers said was not credible.
Deby had been proclaimed transitional president by fellow army generals in 2021 after his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who had ruled Chad for 30 years, was killed in a gun battle with rebels.
Deby promised an 18-month transition to democracy but extended it by two years. Opposition figures have since fled, been silenced or joined with Deby.
