Since 2020, seven countries in Africa have experienced
successful military coups, almost all of them in Francophone West and Central
Africa.
Chad is the first country in the so-called Coup Belt in the
Sahel region to hold elections since then.
Déby is the sixth president in the history of the country of
around 19 million inhabitants, which has never experienced a peaceful transfer
of power since its independence from the former colonial power France in 1960.
The Constitutional Council rejected objections to the
election result by the opposition, which, like representatives of civil
society, spoke of massive electoral fraud.
On Wednesday, runner-up Succès Masra resigned from the post
of prime minister, which he had held in the transitional government since the
beginning of the year.
On Thursday, Déby appointed diplomat Allah-Maye Halina as
the new head of government, state television reported.
The appointment of the confidant, who had served as head of
protocol under Déby’s father and was most recently ambassador to China but has
no government experience, is considered a surprise.
Unlike other military rulers in the region, Déby is an
important ally of France, which has redeployed its troops to Chad following
coups in the Sahel region.
Chad is located at an important crossroads between the
crisis states of Sudan, Libya, Niger, and the Central African Republic and is
home to more than one million refugees.
