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.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the