Chad vote opens under boycott
Voting has begun in Chad’s general elections, with most citizens due to cast ballots on December 29 while members of the armed forces and nomadic communities were asked to vote a day earlier for logistical reasons. The election is being presented by President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno as a major step in the country’s transition to democracy, but opposition parties are treating it as something else entirely: a contest they say is designed to entrench the ruling party.
The main opposition Transformers party called for a boycott and urged supporters to stay home. In the capital N’Djamena, Al Jazeera reported a mood of indifference among many voters, with concerns centered less on campaign promises than on the price of basic goods, corruption and nepotism. Those frustrations matter because Chad is trying to frame the vote as a break from years of transitional rule, yet much of the public conversation is about whether the outcome will really change anything.
The official timetable showed polling open from 6am to 5pm local time. By midday on Saturday, initial estimates suggested about 45% of the country’s 200,000 nomadic tribespeople and 45,000 soldiers had already voted. Senior election official Ousmane Houzibe said voting at a polling station in the Koundoul barracks near N’Djamena was proceeding normally.
The election is also taking place against a difficult security and political backdrop. Chad is dealing with recurring Boko Haram attacks in the Lake Chad region, has recently ended its military accord with France and has been accused of involvement in the war in neighbouring Sudan. Deby, who took power in 2021 after the death of his father Idriss Deby Itno, won a five-year presidential mandate in May in a vote the opposition denounced as fraudulent. Legislative elections have not been held since 2011.
That history is why this ballot is being watched closely. Analyst Mamadou Bodian told Al Jazeera that although the election is a significant milestone and closes a three-year transition period, it is still widely viewed as favouring the governing Patriotic Salvation Movement. He said distrust is deepened by the absence of international observers and by a counting process that many see as opaque. For the opposition, the boycott is a statement that the system is not yet credible; for the government, it is a claim that the transition is finally reaching its destination. The result will show which side can convince more Chadians that the ballot is worth taking seriously.
