Chad’s Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) on Friday announced that the country’s legislative elections will be held on December 13, 2020.
By Adam Hassane Deyé
“It is a consensual calendar,” noted CENI’s first vice-president, Jean-Luc Bénodjita, who stressed that the 21-day electoral campaign begins on November 21.
Bénodjita added that the provisional results will be released on December 27, 2020 while the final results will be announced on January 31, 2021.
Scheduled to last 20 days, the revision of the biometric electoral register will begin on May 20.
Thus, the period from September 19 to October 8 2020 will be devoted to the printing of the electoral list.
“It is after extensive consultations with the stakeholders in the process that the commission has developed this timetable for the holding of the legislative elections. This chronogram required the support of the Head of State, the guarantor of the political agreement for the strengthening of democracy in our country and reflects the analyses, assessments, recommendations and specific indications recorded by CENI throughout its maturation process,” Bénodjita said.
Declaring that this chronogram takes into account the contextual conditions and is consistent with the universal principles of the organization of universal suffrage, according to democratic rules, he welcomed what he called the triumph of the consensus reached by the political class, compared to the date of December 13, 2020, which served as the main benchmark for CENI for the programming of all activities provided for in the chronogram, from the preparatory phase, until the proclamation of final results of the election by the Supreme Court.
Legislative elections were due to hold in 2015, but have been postponed several times, resulting in the extension of the third legislature, which has 188 MPs.
Going by the compsition of the next legislature, Chad will have 161 legislators.
AHD/te/lb/as/APA