General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, head of Chad’s military junta for three years before being elected President in an election boycotted by the opposition, was sworn in on Thursday for a five-year term, renewable once only.
His election in the presidential election on 6 May, with an official 61 percent of the vote, marks the end of a transition period at the start of which he was proclaimed head of state by a military junta on 20 April 2021 following the death of his father Idriss Deby Itno. The Marshal had just been killed by rebels on his way to the front, after ruling Chad for more than 30 years.
“We, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno (…), swear before the Chadian people and on our honour (…) to fulfil the high duties that the Nation has entrusted to us,” swore the Head of State, dressed in his traditional white boubou, before the members of the Constitutional Council and hundreds of guests at the Palace of Arts and Culture in Ndjamena.
After boasting in a speech about the “return to constitutional order,” he promised to be “the President of Chadians from all walks of life and of all convictions.”
The election of this 40-year-old general, in a poll deemed “not very credible” by international NGOs, also marks the end of a three-year transition.
Opposing him, the ex-opposition Succes Masra, appointed Prime Minister last January, won only 18.54 percent of the valid votes cast. After claiming victory, he finally called on his supporters to “continue the political struggle (…) peacefully.” Masra handed in his resignation on Wednesday and was absent from the inauguration.
The ceremony was also an opportunity, by gauging the number of heads of state present, to see whether the international community still supports the man it had given its unhesitating endorsement in 2021, at a time when it was vilifying and punishing military coupists everywhere else in Africa.
Several heads of state, all African, including Mauritanian Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, Togolese Faure Gnassingbe, Central African Faustin Archange Touadera, Gabonese Brice Clotaire Oligui-Nguema, Bissau-Guinean Umaro Sissoco Embalo and Nigerian Bola Tinubu, made the trip to Ndjamena. Some others have sent ministers, while the rest have sent their ambassadors.
France’s Emmanuel Macron, one of the few Western heads of state to have publicly “congratulated” Mr. Deby on his election, sent his Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade and Francophonie, Franck Riester, to the inauguration.
Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world, is considered to be the regional pillar in the war against jihadists in the Sahel. Paris maintains a thousand of its soldiers there, who have been expelled from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in favour of Russia and its paramilitaries or mercenaries.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the very first heads of state to congratulate Mahamat Déby on his election.
fss/abj/APA with AFP