International
Chad Junta chief, Mahamat Deby wins presidential election
Chad’s junta chief Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno won this week’s presidential election in the first round, according to provisional official results released Thursday, extending his family’s decades-long grip on power.
Monday’s vote aimed to end three years of military rule in a country crucial to the fight against jihadism across Africa’s Sahel desert region.
The ANGE electoral commission said Deby won 61.03 per cent of votes, beating Prime Minister Succes Masra, who garnered only 18.53 per cent, in results due to be confirmed by the Constitutional Council.
“I am now the elected president of all Chadians,” Deby said in a brief televised address, promising to make good on his “commitments”.
Masra had earlier claimed victory and warned Deby’s team would rig the results.
Soldiers in the N’Djamena neighbourhood where Masra’s party is based fired their guns in the air after the results were announced, both in celebration of Deby’s win and to deter protesters from gathering, AFP journalists there reported.
Some frightened people ran for cover or to their homes and the capital’s streets were soon empty.
Meanwhile, near the presidential palace in central N’Djamena, Deby’s supporters shouted, sang, sounded car horns and fired their own guns in the air in celebration, AFP reporters saw.
At least two teenagers were injured by falling bullets, an AFP journalist saw.
– Parallel count –
Supporters of Masra, a 40-year-old economist, had been holding their own ballot count in parallel to the official one, and in a speech posted on his Facebook page hours before the results were released, Masra said his team’s count “establishes the victory in the first round, that of change over the status quo”.
“The victory is resounding and without blemish,” he said.
Masra went on to say the team of Deby, who was proclaimed transitional president three years ago by the army, would soon announce that he had won and “steal the victory from the people”.
Masra, a former opposition leader appointed prime minister in January, urged Chadians to “mobilise peacefully to prove our victory”.
Thursday’s announcement was a surprise, coming nearly two weeks earlier than the scheduled release date of May 21.
Deby and Masra faced eight other candidates who were either relatively unknown or considered not hostile to the regime.
Former premier Albert Pahimi Padacke placed third with 16.91 per cent of votes in an election that saw a turnout of 75.89 per cent, ANGE chief Ahmed Bartchiret announced.
– ‘Pilot, co-pilot towards democracy’ –
Opponents had called for a boycott of the vote, dismissing it as fixed.
After announcing he would stand, Masra said he was doing so to maintain the current team of “pilot and co-pilot” in a plane headed “towards democracy” — a reference to himself and Deby.
Masra had been a fierce opponent of the regime before it named him prime minister in January after he returned from exile.
He faced accusations of being a stooge by the opposition, which has been violently repressed and its leading figures barred from standing.
Early in the campaign, observers predicted a massive win for Deby, aged 40, whose top rival was killed earlier this year.
– Ally against jihadism –
Deby was proclaimed transitional president by fellow army generals in 2021 after his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who had ruled Chad with an iron fist for 30 years, was killed in a gun battle with rebels.
Deby promised an 18-month transition to democracy but then extended it by two years.
Opposition figures have since fled, been silenced or joined forces with Deby.
Deby’s cousin and chief election rival Yaya Dillo Djerou was shot point-blank in the head by army soldiers on February 28, according to his party.
The International Federation for Human Rights had warned that the election appeared “neither credible, free nor democratic”.
The International Crisis Group also noted that “a number of problems in the run-up to the balloting cast doubt on its credibility”.
Chad has remained a firm ally of traditional security partner France, whose forces in recent years have been ousted by military regimes in former African colonies including Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
The Sahel nations are reeling from jihadist insurgencies and have strengthened ties with Russia after severing them with Paris.
AFP
International
Kenya’s parliament impeaches Deputy President on charges of corruption, stirring ethnic hatred
Kenya’s parliament voted on Tuesday to impeach Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua on charges including enriching himself and stirring ethnic hatred, the chamber’s speaker said, paving the way for the senate to consider the motion.
“According to the results … of the motion that I’ve just declared, a total of 281 members being more than two thirds of the members of the National Assembly have voted in support of the motion,” Moses Wetang’ula said.
Gachagua, who has denied all the charges, backed President William Ruto in his 2022 election win and helped secure a large block of votes from the populous central Kenya region.
But in recent months, he has spoken of being sidelined, amid widespread reports in local media that he has fallen out with Ruto as political alliances have shifted.
Ruto dismissed most of his cabinet and brought in members of the main opposition following nationwide protests against unpopular tax increases in June and July in which more than 50 people were killed.
On Tuesday evening, Gachagua urged lawmakers to “search your conscience” before voting.
“If you search your conscience and listen to the issues that have been raised and you find that there are no grounds to impeach the deputy president of Kenya, please make the right decision.”
Members of parliament voted to impeach him by a margin of 281 to 44, with one abstention.
Kimani Ichung’wah, parliament’s majority leader, said the 59-year-old politician had “violated not one, but eight provisions of our constitution.”
At one point during the proceedings, he led lawmakers in a chant saying “Rigathi must go”, describing him as “a great danger to our nationhood, a great danger to the unity of our republic.”
Gachagua proclaimed his innocence, offering a detailed denial of the allegations, which include amassing a large unexplained property portfolio, and promoting “ethnic balkanisation”.
“I will fight to the end,” he told a press conference on the eve of the impeachment proceedings.
The senate will now hear the charges and may appoint a special committee to investigate them, where Gachagua or his representative can respond to the allegations.
If at least two-thirds of the senate vote to uphold the impeachment, Gachagua will be dismissed.
Gachagua has filed a court petition to halt the proceedings, which were initiated by Ruto’s coalition allies last week.
Prior to the vote, TIFA Research, a pollster, found that a narrow majority of 41% of Kenyans supported the impeachment against 38% who opposed it.
Ruto has not commented publicly on the impeachment proceedings.
Gachagua outraged many in Ruto’s coalition for likening the government to a company and suggesting that those who voted for the coalition had first claim on public sector jobs and development projects.
(Reuters/NAN)
International
Tunisia’s President secures 2nd term in landslide victory
Tunisia’s President Kais Saied was re-elected on Monday with 90.69 per cent of the vote, the head of the electoral authority ISIE said on national television.
Saied, 66, won Sunday’s election by a landslide, with his challengers Ayachi Zemmal collecting 7.3 per cent and Zouhair Maghzaoui 1.9 per cent of votes cast, ISIE said.
The turnout was 28.8 per cent, the lowest since the country’s 2011 revolution.
International
Tunisia: Court upholds jail term for presidential candidate
A Tunisian court has confirmed an imprisonment sentence earlier handed down to a presidential contender ahead of elections scheduled for Sunday in the North African country.
The appeals court in the city of Jendouba in western Tunisia had upheld the 20-month jail sentence against detained presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel, his lawyer said.
The ruling can be appealed and will not affect Zammel’s candidacy, his lawyer said.
Last month, a lower court issued the sentence against Zammel, a businessman and the head of the liberal Azimoun party, on charges of falsifying electoral endorsements.
The Oct. 6 polls are pitting incumbent President Kais Saied against Zammel and Zouhair Maghzaoui of the leftist nationalist People’s Movement.
Serious challengers to Saied, who is seeking a second term in office, have been excluded, according to observers.
The election commission has recently refused to reinstate three more presidential hopefuls who won court appeals to run for president.
Critics have accused the panel of lacking in independence and clearing the way for Saied to win, accusations that the panel has denied.
The vote will take place “against a backdrop of increased repression of dissent, muzzling of the media, and continued attacks on judicial independence,” Human Rights Watch said last month.
Since 2021, Saied has consolidated his power by dissolving the parliament and calling early elections, steps that the opposition called a “coup.”
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