Mahamat Idriss Déby, Idriss Déby’s son, in March 2013. – KENZO TRIBOUILLARD / AFP
He is Chad’s new strongman. After the death of President Idriss Déby Itno, who ruled his country with an iron fist for 30 years, his son Mahamat Idriss Déby took the head of a military junta and concentrated all the powers.
Idriss Déby died Monday, according to the Chadian presidency, at the age of 68, from injuries sustained at the front against rebels. His son, a 37-year-old corps general, dissolved the National Assembly and the government. “He occupies the functions of President of the Republic, Head of State and Supreme Head of the Armies”, according to the transitional charter published on Wednesday.
A transitional military council set up
“He appoints and dismisses the members of the transitional government” and appoints “the members of the National Transitional Council”, in charge of the legislative function. A Transitional Military Council (CMT) was set up, made up of 15 generals known to be in the circle of the most loyal of the late head of state.
This CMT swore that new institutions would emerge after “free and democratic” elections in a year and a half. The rebels, who have been leading an offensive from Libya against the Chadian regime for ten days, have promised to march on N’Djamena and “categorically” rejected this military advice.
France’s position scrutinized
“We intend to continue the offensive,” said Kingabé Ogouzeimi de Tapol, spokesperson for the Front for Alternation and Concord in Chad (FACT) on Tuesday. The United States called Wednesday for a “peaceful and democratic transition” to a civilian government in Chad, without going so far as to condemn the seizure of power by the military junta.
With the death of Idriss Déby Itno, Westerners, led by Paris, are losing their strongest ally against the jihadists in a troubled Sahelian region, where the former French colony has hitherto been seen as an island of relative stability.
Since coming to power by force in 1990, with the help of Paris, Idriss Déby had always been able to count on his French ally who installed in N’Djamena the headquarters of his anti-jihadist force in the Sahel, Barkhane. France’s position on the military transition is therefore particularly scrutinized.
” Rebellion “
For many opponents who have always been repressed by Idriss Déby’s regime, this seizure of power by his son is nothing more than a “coup d’état”. About thirty Chadian opposition parties denounced Wednesday “an institutional coup”, and called “for the establishment of a transition led by civilians (…) through an inclusive dialogue”. The opposition also called “not to obey the illegal, illegitimate and irregular decisions taken by the CMT, in particular the transitional charter and the curfew”.
The all-powerful Directorate General of Security Services for State Institutions (DGSSIE), until then headed by Mahamat Idriss Déby, “risks dividing itself. They will solve their problems, as they have done in the past, by physical elimination attempts, with the implication of armed violence in the capital, ”he continues.
Threats therefore weigh from all sides on the new strong man of the regime. A Zaghawa, like his father. A career soldier, like his father. Young, of course. But Idriss Déby himself came to power at the age of 38, at the head of a rebellion.