Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, the son of Chad’s former ruler and the African country’s interim military commander, was sworn in as president on Thursday for a five-year term.
Last Monday, the Constitutional Council validated his win with 61% of the vote in the presidential election on May 6.
Déby seized control with a group of generals in 2021 following the death of his father, Idriss Déby Itno, and suspended the Constitution.
His father had already controlled the country for more than three decades.
Since 2020, seven African nations have undergone successful military coups, with the majority occurring in Francophone West and Central Africa.
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Chad is the first country in the Sahel region’s “Coup Belt” to conduct elections since then.
Déby is the sixth president in the history of the country of over 19 million people, which has never had a peaceful transition of power since its independence from former colonial power France in 1960.
The Constitutional Council dismissed the opposition’s complaints about the election results, which, like civil society leaders, alleged widespread of electoral fraud.
On Wednesday, runner-up Succès Masra resigned as prime minister, a position he had held in the transitional administration since the beginning of the year.
Déby named diplomat Allah-Maye Halina as his new prime minister on Thursday, according to state television.
The appointment of the confidant, who previously served as chief of protocol under Déby’s father and was most recently ambassador to China, but has no political experience, is deemed surprising.
Unlike previous military regimes in the area, Déby is a close friend of France, which has redeployed soldiers to Chad following coups in the Sahel.
cc: Daily Post Ng
