Chad president refuses to delay election

April 26, 2006 (MONGO, Chad) — Ignoring rebel threats, an opposition boycott and appeals from the United States, Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno campaigned Wednesday for a third term, having refused to change the May 3 presidential election date.

For the first time since government troops repelled a rebel assault on April 13 on N’Djamena, Deby left the capital to make three campaign stops in the interior of the central African nation.

His first stop at Mongo, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of the capital, was a symbolic one. The rebels of the United Front for Change (FUC) passed through the city briefly as they made their way to N’Djamena, seeking to topple Deby’s regime.

Deby used the rally of about a thousand supporters to again blast Sudan, after accusing Khartoum of supporting the rebels and severing diplomatic relations.

“On April 11, the mercenaries bought by the regime in Sudan cut through your city, you know them well, they are the mercenaries sent by Omar al-Bashir (the Sudanese president),” Deby told the crowd speaking in Arabic.

He urged them to get out and vote in the first round of the presidential election on May 3, while the opposition is urging voters to stay away from the polls.

The FUC rebels said at a press conference held in Paris that they would try to block the vote, which they called “a big electoral masquerade”.

The US deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Donald Yamamoto, said late Tuesday on his visit to N’Djamena that it was “never too late” to delay an election.

“Any election that doesn’t have full participation of all groups then raises issues that they would have to answer for,” said Yamamoto, who met with Deby as well as members of the opposition, and called on Chad’s politicians to carry out a “constructive dialogue”.

(ST)