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N’Djamena. – Chad’s longtime President Idriss Deby, who ruled the country for 30 years, died shortly after securing a sixth term as president, and a military council headed by his son immediately assumed power. He was 68.
Déby died of injuries sustained in a battle against rebels, according to a statement read out on state television by Gen Azem Bermandoa Agouna yesterday, the army’s spokesperson.
“The Marshal of Chad, Idriss Déby Itno, did as he does whenever the state is seriously threatened; he took charge during the heroic fight waged against the terrorist hordes from Libya,” the military council said. “He was injured in the clashes and his soul left his body as he was repatriated to N’Djamena.”
The 15-person military council intends governing for 18 months, with the late president’s 37-year-old son, four-star General Mahamat Idriss Deby serving as interim head of state.
However, rumours of a coup d’etat are sweeping across Chad, with some observers immediately questioning the chain of events leading up to the stunning announcement.
Some residents of the capital N’Djamena also feared there was more to the story of Deby’s demise.
Deby “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield” Agouna said, a day after the president was declared the winner of the election with 79 percent of the votes.
Deby postponed his victory speech to supporters and instead went to visit Chadian soldiers battling rebels, according to his campaign manager.
The exact circumstances of Deby’s death were not immediately clear. The army said the president had been commanding his army at the weekend as it battled rebels who had launched a major incursion into the north of the country on election day on April 11.
The parliament and government have been dissolved and all air and land borders are closed, according to a separate statement signed by the nation’s new leader. Chad doesn’t have a deputy president and the constitution states that in the event of the president’s post becoming vacant, elections should be held in 45 days, with a maximum delay of 90 days.
Ayo Sogunro, a Nigerian lawyer and fellow at the South Africa-based Centre for Human Rights, said that under Chadian law the term of an incumbent president who dies is completed not by family members but by the National Assembly.
‘The army seizing power and conferring it on the son of the president … is a coup and unconstitutional,’ Sogunro tweeted yesterday, calling for the African Union to condemn the transfer of power.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said it had taken note of the creation of the interim military body, urging a quick return to civilian rule and a peaceful transition.
“France lost a brave friend,” Macron’s office said. “It expresses its strong attachment to Chad’s stability and territorial integrity.”
The rebel group Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), which is based across the northern frontier with Libya, attacked a border post in the provinces of Tibesti and Kanem on election day and then advanced hundreds of kilometres south. – Agencies.
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