Only a few days after the decision of the Constitutional Court to validate 10 of the 17 candidatures for the Chadian presidential election, three major opponents withdrew theirs.
With the Chadian presidential election fast approaching, the opposition has called for a general boycott. Theophile Bongoro, Ngarledji Yorongar and Saleh Kebzabo withdrew from the race, denouncing the lack of transparency in the electoral process.
On the side of the party President Idriss Déby, who is running for a sixth term, the secretary general of the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS) Jean Bernard Padaré considers that the boycott is proof, if one were needed, that the candidates in question "have nothing to propose" and that they seek to " exist in the media, ”he said.
The indestructible Déby
Idriss Déby, who was invested on February 6 by the MPS, has been in power in Chad for 31 years. Faced with this pronounced lack of political alternation, the opposition had proposed a solution to the president.
In a letter addressed to Déby, the signatory opponents proposed to the president a "life immunity" if he agreed to leave power at the end of March and postpone the elections which would have been held without him.. An ultimatum that Déby obviously refused.
Despite his mixed record - the economic problems that Chad is going through, the endless war against terrorism and violated constitutional freedoms - Déby continues to have the full confidence of his army and the police, who are loyal to him, of his party the MPS and even of the international community, after his efforts in the conflict in the Sahel.
Divided opposition
According to some opponents, Déby has nothing more to offer Chad. "We will do everything to prevent this masquerade from taking place," said Succès Masra, the president of the Transformers party. "Idriss Déby is forcing this 6th term that the people do not want, he has made the country unlivable, we will make it ungovernable," he added.
However, other opponents will indeed participate in the April 11 election, including Brice Baïmon and former Prime Minister Pahimi Padacket Albert. "It is by insisting and uniting that we can manage to define the current regime, and not by creating a political vacuum," said Baïmon. A strategy which risks once again dividing the opposition and opening wide the road for Déby to victory.
The Chadian election will therefore take place in a tense climate, but faced with such divided opposition, Déby should logically start his sixth term next week. None of the opponents, whether they boycott or participate in the election, has the possibility of mobilizing enough voters against the well-oiled machine of the MPS. It remains to be seen whether the opponents who boycott the poll will have enough influence to mobilize the streets against the president in power for more than three decades.