(29 Dec 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ndjamena, Chad – 29 December 2024
1.Various of election agents opening the ballot box
2. Various of election officials counting the ballot papers
3. Various of election officials counting ballots under a military supervision ++INCLUDES A JUMP CUT++
STORYLINE:
Election officials in Chad began counting the ballots on Sunday after a day of voting in the parliamentary and regional elections.
The parliamentary election is the first in more than a decade in Chad and comes months after the junta leader, Mahamat Idriss Deby, won a disputed presidential vote that was meant to return democracy.
Deby took power in 2021 following the death of his father and longtime president Idriss Deby Itno, who spent three decades in power.
The main opposition is boycotting Sunday's vote after accusing authorities of not overseeing a credible electoral process.
The oil-exporting country of 18 million people, among Africa’s poorest, had not had a free and fair transfer of power since it became independent from France in 1960.
The elections this year are the first in junta-led countries in Africa’s Sahel region in a promised but delayed return to democracy.
At least 8 million voters are registered to elect 188 legislators in the Central African nation’s new National Assembly.
Representatives at the provincial and municipal levels will also be elected. Results are expected in about two weeks.
More than 10 opposition parties are boycotting the vote, including the main Transformers party, whose candidate, Succes Masra, came second in the presidential election.
The party has criticized the parliamentary election, as well as the presidential vote that many observers were banned from, as a “charade” and a ploy for Deby to remain in power to continue a “dynasty."
Masra briefly served as prime minister earlier this year after returning from exile before he resigned to run for president.
Sunday's election comes at a critical period for Chad, which is battling several security challenges from Boko Haram militant attacks in the Lake Chad region to the break in decadeslong military ties with France, its key ally.
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