Chad’s veteran President Idriss Deby is set to extend his 26 years at the helm as voters headed to the polls yesterday in the central African country, which finds itself in the frontline of the global fight against terror.
Deby, the warrior president heading a powerful army who took office in a 1990 military coup, faces 12 challengers, but is widely expected to win a fifth term after consolidating his grip on power.
Under his leadership, the once unstable country has become both an oil producer and key player on the global anti-militant frontline, winning new strategic influence.
Yet the 63-year-old Deby faces unprecedented dissent at home.
In recent weeks protest marches have been banned, activist leaders thrown behind bars and the security presence remains strong.
On Thursday, police fired live rounds and tear gas to disperse a couple of hundred protesters after prosecutors demanded six-month jail terms for five anti-government activist leaders.
“They can shoot to kill at any time,” said the deputy leader of the trade unions movement, Goukouni Maina.
On the campaign trail, Deby has hammered home a vow to promote the “emergence” of Chad, where seven out of 10 people cannot read or write, and half the population of 13 million live below the poverty line despite the new oil revenues.
Oil exports began in 2003 and account for 60 percent of export earnings. However, Chad ranks fourth from last in the UN Human Development Index and more than one child in 10 dies before the age of five, according to World Bank estimates.
Chad is also facing an unprecedented security threat. It was rocked by two militant attacks in the capital last year, while facing a constant threat of suicide attacks and raids.
Deby has tightened security to address the threats while maintaining a strong presence in a regional force fighting the Nigeria-based Boko Haram group.
The country has scores of ethnic groups speaking more than 100 languages and some of its conflicts have been blamed on divisions between Muslims, who make up 53 percent of the population, and Christians and animists.
Those tensions have also been fueled by Deby handing top jobs to members of his Zaghawa ethnic group and Chad’s feared army too is essentially headed by Zaghawas.
Ethnic resentment might be behind protests that erupted in February over the gang rape of a young woman by the sons of several leading army commanders and officials, including the foreign minister.
Two youngsters were killed when security forces cracked down on the demonstrations.
One of Deby’s challengers, Mahamat Yesko Brahim, the father of the young woman who was raped, stood down in favor of the president at the last minute.
He could not be contacted for comment on Saturday.
Of Deby’s other 12 challengers the most prominent is Saleh Kebzabo, a Muslim from the heavily-populated southwest Mayo Kebbi province who first stood against the president in 1996 and who leads the National Union for Development and Renewal (UNDR).
Kebzabo has promised to promote national unity and education if he wins and that thousands of supporters would enter the presidential palace at midnight.
A Deby insider turned foe, former prime minister Joseph Djimrangar Dadnadji, a Christian from Mandoul in the south, is another high-profile candidate.
“In the face of these accumulating challenges, Chadian authorities must avoid the politics of religious or geographic exclusion,” the International Crisis Group said in March. “The greatest threat to stability in Chad in the long-term ... [is] a national political crisis.”
About six million Chadians were eligible to vote yesterday when the polling stations opened at 7am and closed at 6pm.
Official provisional results may not be released for two weeks after voting day.
The voters, who work from dawn just to gain enough to survive, look set to hand another mandate to Deby, whose party emblem shows a hoe and a Kalashnikov rifle.
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