Chad junta chief says will stand in May 6 presidential election

Chad's junta leader Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno said on Saturday he would stand in the May 6 presidential election, just three days after his chief rival was killed in murky circumstances.

Deby Itno took power in 2021 after his father, veteran leader Idriss Deby Itno, died while fighting rebels. The iron-fisted ruler had led the Sahel country for more than three decades.

"I, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, am a candidate for the 2024 presidential election under the banner of the For a United Chad coalition," the military leader said in a speech.

Deby Itno was proclaimed transitional president by the junta in 2021 and promised a return to civilian rule and elections within 18 months.

But he subsequently extended the transition by two years and protests against the decision were brutally repressed by the security forces in October 2022.

The date of the May presidential election was announced on Tuesday, barely two months before the vote.

Deby Itno, 39, is almost certain to win, given that his main challenger has been assassinated and the opposition has been muzzled and repressed.

He has "no opponents who can pose a threat in the race for the presidency", Enrica Picco, project director for Central Africa at Crisis Group, told AFP.

On Wednesday, Deby Itno's cousin and main political rival, opposition leader Yaya Dillo Djerou, was killed after troops surrounded the office of his Socialist Party Without Borders in the capital N'Djamena.

His party accused soldiers of shooting Dillo dead at point-blank range in an "execution" before the election, in which he planned to challenge Deby Itno.

The government has rejected the accusations, saying Dillo "opposed his arrest" and fired on security forces.

Speaking on Saturday from the foreign ministry headquarters and surrounded by troops, Deby Itno claimed that when he seized power in 2021 the army had "saved the country from the abyss and from chaos".

Dressed all in white, he was cheered by hundreds of representatives of the political groups that make up the For a United Chad coalition. The coalition claims it comprises "221 parties".

'Serious concerns'

Human Rights Watch called on Saturday for a foreign-backed independent investigation into Dillo's death.

"The killing of a potential presidential candidate during an assault by Chadian security forces on an opposition party headquarters raises serious concerns about the environment for elections scheduled for May 6," HRW said.

"The circumstances of Yaya Dillo's killing are unclear but his violent death highlights the dangers facing opposition politicians in Chad, particularly as elections approach," said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at HRW.

Yaya Dillo had warned that people wanted to 'physically eliminate' him before the election. By Issouf SANOGO (AFP/File)

Dillo had told AFP before his death that people wanted to "physically eliminate me" ahead of the vote in Chad, a mostly desert country that is one of the world's least developed.

His violent demise and the arrest of an uncle of Deby Itno, Saleh Deby, are said to have deepened fractures within his family and the Zaghawa ethnic group to which it belongs.

While the Zaghawa are in a tiny minority in the vast Sahel country, they have controlled the military and the state apparatus for the past 33 years.