Success Masra, who came second in the presidential election in Chad, announced on Sunday May 12 that he had filed a request with the Constitutional Council to have the vote canceled. “With the help of our lawyers, today we filed a request to the Constitutional Council to reveal the truth about the ballot boxes,” he announced on Facebook. “Our request is the pure and simple cancellation of this electoral charade,” Sitack Yombatina, vice-president of the Transformers, Mr. Masra’s party, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). The latter obtained 18.53% of the vote compared to 61.03% of the president of the transition, Mahamat Idriss Déby, who had appointed him prime minister four months before the election.
Thursday evening, a few hours before the official results were announced, Mr. Masra claimed “victory in the first round” according to his own compilation of votes, carried out by his activists across the country. “All the evidence is in the USB keys” attached to the request to the Constitutional Council, added the vice-president of the party. Mr. Yombatina claims that they contain “videos of ballot stuffing, theft and threats, but above all ballot boxes that were removed by the military to be counted elsewhere.”
Seventy-six people, including minors, were incarcerated after their arrest on Monday, May 6, polling day, for having “manufactured access cards themselves in different polling stations.” According to the N’Djamena public prosecutor, they are all Transformers activists. The party denounced “arbitrary arrests” on Wednesday for “ridiculous and fanciful” reasons.
This election was to mark the end of a three-year military transition, but many observers believed it was a foregone conclusion in favor of Mahamat Idriss Déby, proclaimed head of state on April 20, 2021 to replace his father, Idriss Déby Itno. The latter had just been killed by rebels on his way to the front after having ruled with an iron fist, for thirty years, this vast Sahelian country, one of the poorest in the world.
The opposition, violently repressed and whose main figures have been ousted from the presidential race, considers Mr. Masra a “traitor”, a candidate to give a “democratic veneer” to the vote. The final results are expected no later than May 23, after examination of the referral from Mr. Masra and another candidate, Yacine Abdaramane Sakine, who is contesting his eighth place.
