Chad’s voters go to the polls today to elect the country’s new president in a historic election that will see long serving leader Idriss Déby face 13 challengers.
President Déby has been in power for 26 years, and is seeking a fifth term in office, with his campaign buoyed by a fractured opposition and his image as a strong ally in regional counter-terrorism operations.
Déby rose to power in 1990 in a coup that ousted the then president Hissène Habré. He has since then won the first round of every election by a landslide except the country’s first multiparty election in 1996.
Déby altered the constitution in 2004, eliminating the set two-term limit on the presidency.
He has played a key role in the campaign against Nigeria-based Islamist militant group Boko Haram.
The incumbent faces a major threat from Saeh Kebzabo, a trained journalist and the country’s main opposition leader who previously held various portfolios in Déby’s cabinet between 1993 and 2001, and Joseph Djimrangar Dadnadji, Déby’s former prime minister who resigned from the ruling MPS in 2015 to form the Popular Action Framework for Republican Solidarity and Unity party.
Both have campaigned on pledges to reform the country’s judicial system, address the issues affecting the economy and re-introduce the presidential term limits.
A president is elected in Chad for a five-year term, and there are no limits on his or her presidential mandate. A presidential candidate must obtain an absolute majority of valid ballots cast to avoid a runoff with the second-ranked candidate April 24. The winner in a runoff is determined by a simple majority.
