At the end of a referendum, which the opposition had called for a boycott and whose results it had contested, Chadians approved by 86% the draft of a new constitution submitted to them by referendum by the military junta that has been in power for two and a half years, it announced Electoral Commission on Sunday, December 24th, according to the preliminary results.
According to the preliminary results of the December 17 referendum, the “yes” won with 86% of the votes, while the “no” received 14% of the votes, according to the National Commission in charge of organizing the constitutional referendum (Conorec). According to the committee chairman, the participation rate was 63.75%. The institution welcomed the good conduct of the vote, which found only “minor dysfunctions”.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to announce the final results on December 28th. According to the transition authorities, this referendum is intended to pave the way for elections at the end of 2024 and guarantee a return to civilian power.
Also read: Constitutional referendum in Chad: On the way to exiting the transition phase?
The new constitution, which advocates a “unitary and decentralized state,” is no different from the one previously adopted, as it still concentrates most of the power in the head of state, giving him the authority to run in the next elections.
“They changed the results”
The opposition, which had called for a boycott of the vote, immediately challenged the result. “They have redesigned the results, which have been in the works for a long time, to make them available to the public today. It is a disgrace for the country,” Yoyana Banyara, president of the federal bloc, which called for a no vote in the election, told Agence France-Presse.
For Max Kemkoye, president of the Consultation Group of Political Actors (GCAP), who called for a boycott, “the participation rate would be lower than what CONOREC announced, everyone saw on the day of the vote that the boycott was respected.” »
For a section of the opposition and civil society, this election resembles a referendum intended to prepare the election of the interim president, General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, and to maintain a “dynasty” founded by his late father. That was 33 years ago after a coup.
Since April 2021, Chad has been led by General Mahamat Idriss Déby, the successor to his father Idriss Déby, who was killed on the front lines as the army fought in Chad against the Front for Alternation and Concord rebel group. The former head of state 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. Enough to fuel fears about the maintenance of a Déby “dynasty” by the opposition and international NGOs.
Bloody repression of October 2022
According to the opposition and national and international NGOs, 100 to 300 young demonstrators were shot dead by police and soldiers in N'Djamena on October 20, 2022. They demonstrated peacefully against the two-year extension of the transition. More than a thousand were imprisoned before being pardoned, and more remain missing, according to NGOs and the opposition.
Since this “Black Thursday” of 2022, all anti-power demonstrations have been systematically banned, with the exception of the recent demonstration by one of the main opponents, Succès Masra, who returned from exile after signing a “reconciliation agreement” with Mahamat Déby.
However, at the end of November the military announced a general amnesty, particularly for police and soldiers, in connection with bloody suppressed demonstrations.
Also read: A general amnesty applies in Chad for the bloody suppression of the demonstration in 2022