- Title: CHAD: Voters stay home as Chad's President Idriss Deby seeks 3rd term
- Date: 4th May 2006
- Summary: (BN12) N'DJEMENA, CHAD (MAY 3, 2006) (REUTERS) GROUP OF ELECTORAL AGENTS WAITING FOR VOTERS AT OPEN AIR POLLING STATION WITH BALLOT BOXES IN FOREGROUND VARIOUS OF ELECTORAL MATERIAL ON TABLE VARIOUS OF ELECTORAL AGENTS WAITING FOR VOTERS (SOUNDBITE) (French) UNIDENTIFIED LOCAL RESIDENT SAYING: "There is no opposition. Why should I go to vote? There is no point. Whether I
- Embargoed: 19th May 2006 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Chad
- Country: Chad
- Topics: Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA2FI5KDYW16NHQ8S1Y78ODG3UI
- Story Text: Chad held elections on Wednesday (May 3) expected to extend President Idriss Deby's 16-year rule, but many people heeded an opposition call to boycott the polls overshadowed by a campaign of rebel violence.
Makeshift polling stations on the sun-baked, dusty pavements of the capital N'Djamena stood half-deserted after the boycott by an opposition coalition, which denounced the elections as a charade to hand former army chief Deby a third five-year term.
Deby is almost certain of winning because his four contenders are mostly government allies.
"There will be no forces, even mercenary forces, to come and disrupt the elections in the whole country," Deby said after voting.
Despite a public holiday for the polls, the trickle of early voters dwindled even further as the day progressed. Many disenchanted Chadians pointed to Deby's previous poll victories in 1996 and 2001 which were widely believed to be fraudulent.
"There is no opposition. Why should I go to vote? There is no point. Whether I vote or not, it doesn't make any difference. He will be president (Deby) and he will have a strong victory after the first round. I don't see why I should vote," said one resident.
Deby's supporters say he is a guarantor of stability in the ethnically-divided former French colony, riven by three decades of civil war after independence in 1960. Deby says Sudan, not internal opposition, was behind a rebel assault on N'Djamena on April 13.
But critics say Deby's rule has become increasingly corrupt and dictatorial since he seized power in a 1990 uprising.
More than two million civilians, mostly non-Arab subsistence farmers, have fled their homes to camps in Darfur and across the border into Chad to escape the fighting and raids by government-backed militias. The United States has called the violence genocide. The Sudanese government admits to arming some militias to quell the rebellion but denies links to Janjaweed militias accused of rape, murder and looting. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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