Authorities in Chad have cleared 10 candidates for this year’s long-awaited presidential election, barring two fierce opponents of the military government from standing. Chad’s Constitutional Council announced on March 24 that outspoken opposition figures Nassour Ibrahim Neguy Koursami and Rakhis Ahmat Saleh would be barred.
The elections are part of a transition back to democracy from rule by Chad’s military government, which is one of several currently in power in West and Central Africa. There have been eight coups in the region since 2020, sparking concerns of a democratic backslide. It is the first time in Chad’s history that a president and a prime minister will face each other in a presidential poll.
Wakit Tamma, another of the main opposition platforms in Chad, on March 23 called for a boycott of the presidential vote, denouncing it as a “masquerade” aimed at upholding a “dynastic dictatorship.”
The barring of the opposition candidates comes less than a month after General Deby’s main rival Yaya Dillo Djerou was shot dead in an army assault on his PSF party headquarters.
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