Chad’s presidential election will be held as planned
April 29, 2006 (N’DJAMENA) — Chad’s presidential election will be held as scheduled on May 3, the electoral chief said Saturday, despite calls for a delay in the vote.
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission Ahmad Mahamat Bashir said voting would begin Sunday in sparsely populated remote regions of Chad because of the time it takes to reach there, but voting in other parts of the central African country will take place Wednesday, May 3.
The political opposition wants the vote delayed because it thinks the election is already rigged.
The electoral commission “has the obligation of organizing the election in the month May” as provided under Chad’s constitution, Bashir told journalists, after reading aloud sections of the charter on a presidential election to support his position.
He did not refer directly to calls for a delay by the main opposition alliance and Chad’s Roman Catholic bishops, and he did not take questions.
Some 5.8 million Chadians were registered to cast ballots in about 11,800 polling stations, he said. The U.N. population fund estimates Chad’s population is 9.7 million.
In recent months, the 19-party opposition alliance, called Coordination for the Defense of the Constitution, has repeatedly demanded the vote be postponed because it believes the poll is already rigged. It argues that the constitution can be changed to delay the vote and resolve opposition concerns.
On Thursday, the Roman Catholic bishops said rebels who are pushing to topple President Idriss Deby should call a cease-fire in exchange for the government postponing the election. They hope that such a compromise may avert war, though the rebels themselves have never said that they wanted the election postponed. They have only said they want Deby out.
The government has refused to postpone the election, saying doing that would create a constitutional vacuum.
Rebels who have been fighting in eastern Chad attacked the capital, N’djamena, about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) from their bases on April 13 in a failed bid to oust Deby. The government said that at least 350 people were killed in the fighting.
Chad also has a number of other small-scale rebellions in other parts of the country.
The election will be the country’s third under a multiparty system. Deby, two candidates from parties allied to him, and a minor opposition candidate are standing for election.
Deby, who is seeking a third term, seized power by force in 1990. In 1991, he introduced multiparty politics in Chad, where power has usually been won by the bullet, not the ballot.
Deby went on to win Chad’s first multiparty presidential poll in 1996 and a subsequent 2001 election. Critics say neither vote was free and fair.
Last year, he pushed for a national referendum to change the constitution to allow him to run for a third term. The amendment passed after an opposition boycott.
(ST/AP)