The former minister belongs to a handful of men who fought fiercely to ensure that the next presidential election in Chad included General Mahamat Idriss Deby, who has since been sworn in as president of the transition on Monday.
By special correspondent, Lemine Ould M. Salem
He says he will finally be allowed a little respite given that he had had not slowed down lately.
Since the surprise death of President Idriss Deby Itno, fatally shot in April 2021 while he was at the frontline of a military counter-offensive against a rebellion that aimed to dislodge him from power, Jean-Bernard Padare has not stopped scrambling from meeting to meeting, sometimes public, sometimes secret with the sole concern that the succession of his ex-boss should not be to the detriment of his camp, the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS), the party founded by the late head of state who ruled Chad for more than thirty years as absolute master.
On Saturday October 8, after over five months of laborious discussions in Qatar, finally continued for forty-five days in the format of an inclusive and sovereign National Dialogue (DNIS) in N’Djaména, the 1500 delegates, including important former rebels, adopted the essence of what this 55-year-old lawyer, several times a minister, currently number 2 and spokesperson for the MPS, wanted.
That is the extension of the transitional period for two years, which is supposed to lead to a return to constitutional order in Chad, and the right to run in future presidential elections for General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, the son of the late president, who was installed in his father’s place by a Transitional Military Council (CNT).
Mahamat was officially enthroned by the DNIS on Saturday as “president of the transition.”
This new position would feel a wee bit more comfortable than head of a junta and to which the 38-year-old general has been inaugurated on Monday, October 10 in the presence of several African heads of state.
Bloodshed Prophecy
“The Bloodshed Prophecy has failed. They had promised disaster for Chad, whereas everything went well during this dialogue. The exchanges were sometimes virulent. But in the end, the interests of the country prevailed and each camp saw its main demands taken into account. The promised split between the Muslim North and the Christian South did not happen. Neither did the clashes between clans and tribes,” said the politician from the predominantly Christian south, who has worked in several ministries, including the highly sensitive Justice Ministry.
Like many of the DNIS participants, Padaré admitted that he would have been “much happier if everyone had agreed to attend this dialogue,” in reference to the boycott of the meeting by part of the so-called radical opposition and the Front for Alternance and Concord in Chad (FACT).
He promised that “the door to dialogue remains open,” repeating in a few words what General Mahamat Idriss Deby himself said in his closing speech at the DNIS on Saturday.
“I would like to reiterate my unceasing appeal for peace to the brothers who still cling to the logic of arms and violence without a future. I also invite the political and social forces that did not participate in this dialogue to appropriate the results, because the ideal sought is nothing other than the progress of the country. I would like to remind them that we are in a continuous, permanent dialogue to build a nation that resembles us and brings us together,” Deby Jr told DNIS delegates.
The day after his enthronement by the CMT generals, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno had promised not to run for the presidency once the 18 months of transition initially promised, “renewable only once,” in his own words.
But the man who was, during his father’s lifetime, the discreet boss of the presidential guard, this elite unit that the whole world had discovered for the first time when it had courageously distinguished itself in northern Mali during the international military intervention led by France in January 2013 to drive out the jihadists who occupied the region, seems to have changed his mind since last June.
If the Chadians were finally “not able to agree,” he said then, he would hand over his personal destiny “to God” for the future presidential election.
“This statement was quickly interpreted as a desire to run for the next presidential election. However, at no point does he say this clearly. But let’s assume that he is thinking about it. What is the rule of law that could be opposed to him? In Chadian law, there is none. And in community or international law either,” argued the leader of the former ruling party who has repeatedly defended the interests of Deby senior and the Chadian state.
According to him, “unlike what happened in Mali, Guinea or Burkina Faso where the military currently in power had committed real coups that the texts of the African Union clearly prohibit, in Chad it was not by force that the Military Council of the transition installed General Mahamat Idriss Deby at the head of the country.”
Padaré, Déby’s lawyer
The former Minister of Justice swears that it was the President of the National Assembly, legally responsible for ensuring the interim presidency in case of a power vacancy, who himself asked the army chiefs to designate one of them to ensure the transition at the head of the country because of the particular context in which President Deby died.
“He died in combat, in the middle of his army. In order to maintain cohesion within the troops and their morale, the president of the National Assembly judged that only the military were able to manage the country in these particular circumstances,” the MPS spokesman argues.
The African Union and international partners of this vast landlocked and half-desert country, considered a key player for security and stability in the Sahel where for over ten years Islamist insurgencies have been rampant, had initially turned a blind eye to the seizure of power by the junta of the CMT, which the DNIS has now dissolved in favour of an expanded National Transitional Council (CNT) which is supposed to play the role of parliament during the new transition period.
But on September 19, the pan-African organisation issued a statement calling on the junta to respect “the eighteen-month period for the completion of the transition.”
It also recalled “unequivocally that no member of the Transitional Military Council can be a candidate in the elections at the end of the transition.”
The European Union also expressed its “concern” after the decision adopted Saturday by the DNIS delegates to extend the transition and allow General Mahamat Idriss Deby to run for president in the upcoming elections.
“We should not be surprised if we find ourselves forced to forge new alliances…”
In Africa, this kind of statement by the two international organisations is often a harbinger of anything but good news.
In the streets of N’Djamena, as in the corridors of the January 15 Palace, which housed the DNIS and where the young five-star general has been officially invested Monday in his new role as “President of the transition,” the hypothesis of political and economic sanctions against the country frightens many people.
“It would be a great injustice that could have serious consequences on relations between Chad and its traditional partners. As nature abhors a vacuum, we should not be surprised if we find ourselves forced to forge new alliances as some African countries have done recently,” warned the former minister.
He is referring to the rapprochement made in recent years by some states such as the Central African Republic and neighbouring Sudan or Mali with Russia, whose paramilitaries from the controversial private company Wagner have replaced historical military co-operations such as with France, whose thousands of soldiers that had confronted jihadists for decades have been forced to leave Malian territory and settle in other neighbouring countries.
LOS/lb/as/APA