Chad prepares to vote tomorrow

Chad prepares to vote tomorrow

Chad will hold presidential elections on Monday, the candidate widely expected to win is Mahamat Idriss Deby – the man who seized power the day rebels shot and killed his long-ruling father, Idriss Deby, in April 2021.

Opposition groups have already cried foul.

Opposition figure Yaya Dillo was shot and killed in N’djamena on Feb. 28, the day the election date was announced.

The opposition has called Dillo’s death an assassination and forensic experts have said he was likely shot at point-blank range.

Chadian authorities said he was killed during an exchange of fire with security forces who had been sent to detain him for alleged involvement in clashes.

Chad is now the last Sahel country with a substantial French military presence after other junta-led states including neighbouring Niger as well as Burkina Faso and Mali, told Paris and other Western powers to remove their troops and turned to Moscow for backing.

“Chad is just too strategic at the moment for the West to allow Russia to get an opening,” Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel programme at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said.