Chad's junta chief Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno declared winner presidential poll, extending his family's decades-long grip on power
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00:00 Well, joining me on the set is our reporter Claire Paquelin. She was covering the elections
00:04 in Chad for France 24. Hello to you, Claire. You're watching that report and you're thinking
00:08 maybe to add some nuance about some of the perhaps uncertainty about the situation that's
00:14 going on there.
00:15 Surely. Well, we saw in that report the official election agency announced the results on Thursday
00:20 evening, so yesterday evening. And Soukzé Mazraoui went live on Facebook. So he was
00:25 the prime minister and also the sort of second front runner in this election campaign. He
00:31 went live on Facebook just before the official results were announced saying that he had
00:35 won the first round. He told his supporters, don't let your destiny be stolen from you.
00:41 He told his supporters to go out into the streets, mobilize, he said, at 7am on Friday
00:46 morning. So this morning, he said, mobilize peacefully, but firmly. And he even told soldiers
00:52 who support him to refuse to obey unjust orders. Now, there's a context here that I need to
00:58 tell you about, which is that in October 2022, Soukzé Mazraoui's supporters demonstrated
01:04 in the streets and there was a bloodbath. The security forces cracked down very, very
01:09 hard. We don't know exactly how many people were killed, but it was it could be up to
01:14 a few hundred, up to 300. Soukzé Mazraoui, fearing for his life, went into exile in the
01:20 US. So clearly calls to mobilize in the streets now are leading to fears that they could be
01:26 around too, despite Soukzé Mazraoui saying to supporters, you know, peaceful, peaceful,
01:32 peaceful. It's tense in N'Djamena at the moment.
01:34 Yeah, a rerun of that unrest would be, I think, for everyone, the worst case scenario. What
01:40 do we know about what is happening on the streets this morning?
01:43 So, so far, I've been speaking to people in N'Djamena who've told me the streets are calm,
01:48 largely because Soukzé Mazraoui's supporters are scared. There are heavily armed soldiers
01:53 patrolling the streets of N'Djamena. And one local journalist even said to me, you know,
01:57 people don't want to commit suicide. You know, they know what happened a year and a half
02:00 ago in October 2022. That said, as we saw in that report, there were celebratory shots
02:07 last night after the results were announced. Even watching, I was watching a Chadian TV
02:12 channel and you could hear the shots actually live on TV. I think they must have just been
02:17 outside the studios. There were lots and lots of celebratory fire going on in the capital.
02:23 And we understand now local media is saying nine people were killed because of celebratory
02:28 fire, including a mother who had twins, baby twins. She was killed and her two babies were
02:34 seriously injured because of broken glass and debris in the home. So, yeah, we can say
02:39 that the streets are reasonably calm in N'Djamena right now, but there's definitely a tense
02:45 situation at the moment there.
02:47 What more can you tell us about these two political rivals?
02:51 So they are arch rivals. We have Mehmet Idris Debi, or Midi. He's known in Chad after his
02:57 initials. He's the son of the late President Idris Debi, who was killed visiting troops
03:03 three years ago. The army installed his son, Midi. You can see him there in white in the
03:08 pictures there. They installed him as interim president. Now, his arch rival, Souksé Mazra,
03:14 he actually, about 18 months into this transition period, which was supposed to be a transition
03:19 from military to civilian rule, Souksé Mazra and some of his supporters, they were very
03:25 unhappy about the fact that they felt that Midi was clinging onto power and the transition
03:30 period was supposed to be 18 months long and it was going on and on and on. It was going
03:33 past that date. So that's why they came out into the streets. And that's how we saw that
03:37 bloodbath and Souksé Mazra going into exile.
03:40 He came back from exile. He signed a deal with Midi. He came back from exile. And the
03:46 idea was that he accepted the post of prime minister. So we had this strange situation
03:51 by we had the interim president and his prime minister were arch rivals, and yet they were
03:55 working together. And then they both ended up as opposition candidates in the election.
04:00 So it was a strange situation. And a lot of people were wondering, what is Souksé Mazra's
04:04 game? And now people are asking, how long will he stay on as prime minister, given that
04:09 he's now called on his supporters to mobilize? That call, though, as far as we can tell,
04:14 has not yet been answered because people are simply too scared to go into the streets right
04:17 now.
04:18 And were these results, the interim president winning, were these results expected?
04:23 They were expected. In Chad, I struggled to find anyone who thought that there would be
04:28 a second round in these elections. You only have to walk around the capital city and you
04:32 see posters of Midi everywhere. Far more. There were 10 candidates in these elections,
04:37 but there were far more posters of Midi in the streets. And he has the army behind him.
04:42 That's a very important thing in Chad. He's got the army. Now, of course, many candidates
04:47 cried foul. They said that this election was weighted in his favor. They pointed out that
04:53 he himself actually appointed the members of the official election agency. So that agency
04:58 is the one responsible for counting the votes and announcing the results. And he appointed
05:02 those members. So you kind of think, well, who are they working for? Who's their boss?
05:06 You know, they owe their jobs to him. Now, of course, that agency, I met with them. I
05:09 spoke with them. They deny that there's any weighting in favor. They say that they are
05:14 free, fair, transparent. But there are question marks, really, over how transparent these
05:19 elections can be seen, despite, you know, those in charge would deny that accusation.
05:24 All right, Claire, thank you very much. Claire Paquelon, our reporter, telling us the latest
05:29 about the tension after these elections in Chad. Thank you.