N’DJAMENA, Chad (AP) — Chadians voted Sunday amid a low turnout in parliamentary and regional elections that will end a three-year transitional period from military rule but which the main opposition is boycotting after accusing authorities of not overseeing a credible electoral process.
The parliamentary election is the first in more than a decade in Chad and comes months after the junta leader, Mahamat Idriss Deby, won a disputed presidential vote that was meant to return democracy. Deby took power in 2021 following the death of his father and longtime president Idriss Deby Itno, who spent three decades in power.
Voting ended late Monday although official results won’t be known for about two weeks. The election will “pave the way for the era of decentralization so long awaited and desired by the Chadian people,” Deby said.
The oil-exporting country of 18 million people, among Africa’s poorest, had not had a free and fair transfer of power since it became independent from France in 1960. The elections this year are the first in junta-led countries in Africa’s Sahel region to hold a promised but delayed return to democracy.
At least 8 million voters are registered to elect 188 legislators in the Central African nation’s new National Assembly. Representatives at the provincial and municipal levels will also be elected.
There was a low voter turnout in the capital N’Djamena, where only a handful of voters were seen in some polling stations.
“We hope that the people we voted for do a good job for a better Chad, a Chad with a future,” said Mahamat Issa Hissein, who voted in the capital.
More than 10 opposition parties are boycotting the vote, including the main Transformers party, whose candidate, Succes Masra, came second in the presidential election.
The party has criticized the parliamentary election, as well as the presidential vote that many observers were banned from, as a “charade” and a ploy for Deby to remain in power to continue a “dynasty.”
Masra briefly served as prime minister earlier this year after returning from exile before he resigned to run for president. On Saturday, he alleged that results of the vote would be tampered with and told voters, “It is better to stay at home.”
Sunday’s election comes at a critical period for Chad, which is battling several security challenges from Boko Haram militant attacks in the Lake Chad region to the break in decadeslong military ties with France, its key ally.
Mahamat Oumar Adam, a Chadian political scientist, said the main issue at stake in the election is not losing the country’s democracy to a prolonged transition. That transition began in 2021, and featured a national dialogue in 2022, a constitutional referendum in 2023 and this year’s presidential election.
“This is the last stage of the process of exiting the transition (but) the shortcoming is related to the lack of opposition in this election,” Adam said.
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Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria.
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