N’DJAMENA, Chad: Two fierce opponents of the military government who were barred from standing in the May 6 presidential election and eight other candidates Wednesday protested as they vowed to use all legal means “to save the country from dictatorship”.
On Sunday, Chad’s Constitutional Council in N’Djamena announced that outspoken opposition figures Rakhis Ahmat Saleh and Nassour Ibrahim Neguy Koursami would be barred.
The constitutional court said their applications had been rejected over “irregularities”.
The presidential candidates vowed at a press conference to “fight” back and block the road they say the ruling Deby dynasty is following to “dictatorship”.
Denouncing what he termed the court’s “fallacious reasons”, one of the 10 read out a statement they had all signed as they called for the mobilisation of the people, using all legal means “to save the country from dictatorship”.
The appeal comes a month after Yaya Dillo, Chadian leader General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno’s main rival, was shot dead in an army assault on his PSF party headquarters.
Nassour Ibrahim Koursami, Dillo’s replacement, was among those barred, along with prominent opponent Rakhis Ahmat Saleh.
“Yesterday Yaya Dillo was executed without warning and today [the authorities] are doing everything to disqualify inconvenient candidates and to pave the way for the dynasty,” the protesting candidates stated.
General Deby was among 10 candidates the council allowed to run for the presidency. He was proclaimed president by a junta of generals in 2021 following his father’s death. His father had ruled the Sahel country with an iron fist for more than three decades.
Diplomats, political analysts and opposition figures are unanimous in their view point that the other approved candidates have been nominated to give a pluralist facing to the vote or had no political support and little chance of winning.
Human Rights Watch had sought an independent probe into Yaya Dillo’s killing by the security forces, saying that the army assault “raises serious concerns about the environment for elections scheduled for May”.
