While the Chadian CENI announced the re-election of Idriss Déby at the head of Chad, the army has just indicated that the president has died.
After thirty years of power, and while the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) had just announced his re-election with a score of nearly 80%, the president of Chad is dead, according to the army. The various sources affirm that Idriss Déby commanded his army in fighting against rebels in the north last weekend. On the evening of April 11, FACT troops, an armed group present in Libya, crossed the border and started fighting against the military units of Zouarké and Zouar.
While dozens of soldiers perished, the Chadian president was leading, according to army information, his troops on the ground. The spokesperson for the army announced on Tuesday on state television that "the President of the Republic, Head of State, Supreme Head of the Armed Forces, Idriss Déby Itno, has just known its last breath in defending territorial integrity on the battlefield ”.
Wounded at the front, Idriss Déby is therefore officially dead, after several months of protest from opponents about his sixth term. The marshal had refused any negotiation with the political parties of the opposition. "It is with deep bitterness that we announce to the Chadian people the death on Tuesday, April 20, 2021 of Marshal of Chad," continued army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna.
France is losing an unwavering ally in the Sahel. The President of Chad had agreed to send men into combat. A suicide operation, according to observers, but above all a way for Idriss Déby to become a key figure for France, which had not seen fit to speak out on his sixth term. Formerly a pariah, for Paris, Déby had redeemed himself with legitimacy through soldiers sent to the front.
Déby had, at the time of the death of Libyan Gaddafi, estimated that this would destabilize the whole region. In Le Figaro, a former diplomat explained that Déby “played it perfectly. He was thus able to put a stop to all international criticism of his regime and even obtain loans from major international institutions that would otherwise have been refused or subject to very strict conditions ”.
But internal divisions were very present in the country. For several months, demonstrations troubled Chad, while the presidential election loomed. An opposition coalition had issued an ultimatum to Déby: not to run for his own succession and postpone the presidential election in exchange for lifelong immunity. Déby had refused… He died of it.