Legislative and local elections will be held separately in the first quarter of 2020, the Chairperson of the Chadian Electoral Commission (CENI) Kodi Mahamat told the media Thursday in N’Djamena.
Mahamat thereby approved the proposal made by President Idriss Deby Itno to hold legislative and local elections at the end of 2019 or early 2020.
In a letter he sent last month to President Idriss Deby, Kodi Mahamat proposed two timetables for legislative and local elections, in April and November 2020, respectively.
However, this new schedule does not yet take into account the fixed dates. The CENI chairperson noted that this horizon seems realistic and could be met with the availability of funds for electoral operations by mobilizing energies and acting methodically and efficiently.
Thus, in order to comply with this timetable, the CENI audited the equipment used for the 2016 presidential elections. According to Mahamat, the findings showed that the system set up in 2015 can be reused by any technical operator even outside the former operator.
“The main requirement in this case is that this new operator must have the appropriate tools,” he said, announcing the recruitment of a new technical operator.
Meanwhile, Mahamat said CENI members will soon travel to the country’s 23 provinces to install members, in addition to continuing to collect data to update the national electoral map.
AHD/odl/cd/lb/Dng/ APA