Chad’s veteran leader, President Idriss Deby, has won a fifth term in office, the national electoral commission announced on Thursday, extending his 26 years in power, as the opposition alleged fraud.
Taking more than 60 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential polls, Deby came far ahead of main opposition leader Saleh Kebzabo, who won about 12 percent and said the vote was rigged.
We “don’t recognize the outcome of this electoral stick-up,” a group of opposition politicians including Kebzabo said, alleging ballot-stuffing and the buying-up of voter cards.
“Hundreds of ballot boxes have disappeared,” the group said, adding that soldiers who had intended to vote against Deby had also “disappeared,” alleging they had likely been “arrested and imprisoned.”
African Union observers last week declared the elections free and fair. The organization’s rotating presidency is currently held by Deby.
On Thursday, supporters from Deby’s Patriotic Salvation Movement party celebrated by firing guns and automatic rifles into the air in the capital’s vast Nation Square.
During the day, ahead of the results announcement, there was a strong military presence on the streets of the capital.
More than 6 million people had been asked to choose between 13 presidential hopefuls in the vote, with turnout pegged at more than 71 percent.
During the polls there was an online blackout, with the Internet cut and mobile phones unable to send messages.
A crew for French-language broadcaster TV5 that had been covering scuffles between soldiers and opposition activists over alleged ballot box-stuffing had their camera forcefully taken away by security forces and the footage erased.
Earlier this month, four civil society leaders were handed four-month suspended sentences for urging anti-government protests ahead of the vote.
The government had banned demonstrations after protests erupted in February over the gang rape of a teenage girl blamed on the sons of top figures in Deby’s regime.
Four days after the ban, a student was killed and five wounded when police opened fire to break up a protest in the northern city of Faya Largeau.
Deby’s election also came as staff at several hospitals, schools and universities were on strike over weeks of wage arrears.
Under Deby — who took power in a military coup — once unstable Chad has become both an oil producer and a key player in the fight against Muslim extremist groups on the rampage in west Africa.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the