At the end of a referendum that the opposition had called to boycott and whose results it contested, Chadians approved by 86% the draft new Constitution which was submitted to them by referendum by the military junta in power for two and a half years, announced the electoral commission on Sunday December 24, according to the provisional results.
According to the provisional results of the referendum of December 17, the yes won with 86% of the votes while the no obtained 14% of the votes, according to the National Commission responsible for the organization of the constitutional referendum (Conorec). The participation rate was 63.75%, according to the committee president. The institution welcomed the good performance of the vote relating only to “minor malfunctions”.
The final results are to be announced by the Supreme Court on December 28. According to the transitional authorities, this referendum should pave the way for elections at the end of 2024 and guarantee the return to civilian power.
The new Constitution which advocates “a unitary and decentralized state” does not differ from that previously adopted, the head of state still concentrating most of the power and authorizing him to run in the next elections.
“They transformed the results”
The opposition, which had called for a boycott of the vote, immediately contested the results. “They transformed the results, edited for a long time, to make them public today. It’s a shame for the country.”denounced to Agence France-Presse Yoyana Banyara, president of the Federal Bloc who called for voting no in the ballot.
For Max Kemkoye, the president of the Consultation Group of Political Actors (GCAP) who called for a boycott, “the participation rate would be less than what CONOREC announced, everyone saw the day of the vote the boycott was respected. »
For part of the opposition and civil society, this election is akin to a plebiscite intended to prepare for the election of the transitional president, General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno and to perpetuate a “dynasty” initiated by his late father 33 years ago, already following a coup d’état.
Chad has been led, since April 2021, by General Mahamat Idriss Déby, successor to his father, Idriss Déby, killed at the front while the army was fighting the Front for Alternation and Concord in Chad, a rebel group. The former head of state had ruled this Central African state, the second least developed country in the world according to the UN, with an iron fist for more than thirty years. What makes us fear the perpetuation of a “dynasty” Déby by the opposition and international NGOs.
Bloody repression of October 2022
On October 20, 2022, 100 to 300 young demonstrators were shot and killed in N’Djamena by the police and soldiers, according to the opposition and national and international NGOs. They were peacefully demonstrating against the two-year extension of the transition. More than a thousand were imprisoned before being pardoned, and others remain missing according to NGOs and the opposition.
Since this “Black Thursday” of 2022, any demonstration hostile to power is systematically prohibited, with the recent exception of that of one of the main opponents, Succès Masra, who returned from exile after signing a “reconciliation agreement” with Mahamat Déby.
The military authorities, however, announced at the end of November a general amnesty, particularly for police and soldiers, in the context of demonstrations repressed in a bloodbath.