Chad backsliding on democratic principles: opposition, analysts
Long jail terms imposed on opposition figures recently show Chad is sliding further from democratic principles under President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, analysts and opposition said.
Deby has led the country since 2021 after taking charge of a military transition following the death of his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who was killed by rebels after 30 years leading the central African country.
The iron-fisted senior Deby had reintroduced multi-party politics when he took power and allowed political opponents to operate.
But last year, one of the current president's fiercest critics, former prime minister and opposition leader Succes Masra, was sentenced to 20 years in prison, in what Human Rights Watch called a politically motivated trial.
His conviction for inciting violence and complicity to murder was upheld last week by the Supreme Court.
Eight other opposition leaders were jailed this month for eight years after being found guilty of insurrection over a protest that was banned by the government.
They were all members of the Political Actors' Consultation Group (GCAP), which had called for a boycott of the election that saw Deby elected in 2024.
A day before their sentencing, their GCAP movement had been dissolved.
"It's impossible to deny: we're witnessing a clear democratic backsliding, with those in power now seeming allergic to any form of dissent," another ex-prime minister and opposition figure Albert Pahimi Padacke told AFP.
"Between arrests and dissolutions, an entire segment of dissident voices has just been gagged," he said.
'Fallen silent'
Masra, a 42-year-old economist, was a fierce opponent of the authorities before they named him prime minister five months ahead of the presidential election.
Like other opposition figures, he had fled the country after the army and police opened fire on demonstrators protesting an extension of the political transition under the Deby-led ruling junta in October 2022.
Masra returned from exile a year later, signed a reconciliation deal with Deby and served as premier from January until May 2024 when he came second in the presidential election, winning a fifth of the vote.
Deby was elected head of state with just over 60 percent of the vote, in a contested ballot boycotted by a majority of opposition parties.
"Political debate has fallen silent since the arrest of the GCAP leaders," teacher Mahamat Issa from the capital N'Djamena said.
They were "vociferous" but not as active as Masra, who "knew how to rouse crowds", he added.
'Threat of destabilisation'
Political analyst Yamingue Betinbaye said the recent imprisonments sounded the death knell for Chad's opposition.
It is "proof of a worrying backsliding of democracy in Chad", he said.
"The system is fragile, the president is afraid and sees a threat of destabilisation in every form of opposition," Rakhis Ahmat Saleh, head of the Party for Democratic Renewal in Chad, said.
In October, parliament passed by a landslide a constitutional revision allowing the president unlimited seven-year terms.
HRW said it further weakened "the prospects for a meaningful, democratic change of government in line with international norms".
"What is left of Chad's democratic project?" asked Remadji Hoinathy, researcher at the Institute for Security Studies.
"Democracy absolutely requires counter-voices and counterparts. It cannot function only among actors on the same side," he said.