(3 Minutes Read)
The campaigns, which do not have a level playing field, opposition parties complain, give the junta leader and his premier 35 days of advantage instead of the 21 days stipulated in the code
In the capital city of Chad, Ndjamena, the billboards and posters promoting the candidacies of junta leader Mahamat Idriss Deby and Prime Minister Succes Masra are already up. The official start of the campaign for the elections is still a week away and is scheduled to commence on 14th April. This, the opposition parties claim, is giving an advantage to the ruling junta.
The opposition parties claim that since 1 April, the ruling party has been campaigning on billboards soliciting votes for its candidates. There are large cutout images of the president and prime minister, obtusely soliciting votes, which the opposition claims, has undermined the credibility of the voting system. The campaigns, which do not have a level playing field, opposition parties complain, give the junta leader and his premier 35 days of advantage instead of the 21 days stipulated in the code.
The election authority has since released a statement asking Debby and Masra to stop early campaigns. Chad, an oil-rich central African state has no history of organising credible elections.
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Chad, the landlocked country is bordered by Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger. It has a population of 16 million, of which 1.6 million live in the capital and largest city of N’Djamena. With a total area of around 1,284,000 km2 (496,000 sq mi), Chad is the fifth-largest country in Africa and the twentieth-largest in the world. It has the second-largest wetland in Africa. Chad’s official languages are Arabic and French and it is home to over 200 different ethnic and linguistic groups. Islam (55.1%) and Christianity (41.1%) are the main religions practiced in Chad.
