Chad’s Prime Minister and opposition leader Succes Masra has resigned after interim President Mahamat Idriss Deby was confirmed as a winner of the May 6 presidential election, Masra said on Wednesday.
Chad Prime Minister Masra, a staunch opponent of the junta, which seized power in April 2021, was appointed prime minister of the transitional government in January, four months ahead of the poll, in a move to appease the opposition.
In March, his candidacy was cleared for the presidential election to return the country to constitutional rule. The oil-producing country is the first of a string of coup-hit states in West and Central Africa’s Sahel region to attempt such a return.
Before the official announcement of preliminary results Masra claimed victory, alleging that electoral fraud was being planned.
Chad’s state election body said Deby had won the election outright with 61% of the vote and the constitutional council later confirmed him as a winner.
Masra has acknowledged the council’s ruling and said there were no other legal means to contest the results.
“In accordance with the constitution, I have today presented… my resignation and that of the transitional government, which has become irrelevant with the end of the presidential election of May 6,” Masra said on X on Wednesday.
Deby’s victory prolongs the rule of the family that has had a firm grip on power since Deby’s father took over in a coup in the early 1990s.
Unlike its neighbours Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso that turned to Russia to fight Islamic terrorist groups, Chad remains pro-West. It is a key ally in the fight against Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
It is also the first among a bunch of coup-hit Sahel states to embrace elections. Bute US withdrew some troops there recently after the air force chief warned them to stop work at an airbase. Apparently, some paperwork is missing or is not done, or at least that is the explanation.
