Opposition groups in Chad are condemning the ascension to power by the 37-year old son of the late President Idriss Déby, Mahamat.
The opposition is viewing the young Déby’s ascension to power as an unconstitutional “coup” even when some are calling for an inclusive national dialogue – overseen by the United Nations and the African Union – to resolve decades of instability and humanitarian crisis.
Despite Chad’s mineral wealth, it has remained desperately poor.
The late Déby’s rule was allegedly marked by corruption, human rights violations, and repeated attempts by armed groups to overthrow him.
Chad is also at the crossroads of multiple regional conflicts, and shelters more than 470,000 refugees from Sudan, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Nigeria and Niger.
The New Humanitarian reports that the sudden death of Idriss Déby after more than 30 years in power has major security implications for the Sahelian region.
‘’Déby was seen as the lynchpin of Western-backed efforts to battle jihadist groups’’, the newspaper says, pointing out that the circumstances surrounding the demise of the former strongman remain unclear.
According to the Chadian military, the 68-year-old Déby, who had just secured his sixth term in office after disputed elections, died after being wounded at the previous weekend commanding troops in the north of the country, while battling a coalition of armed groups led by the Libyan-based Front for Change and Concord in Chad, or FACT.
His son, an Army General has taken over as the head of a new 15-member Transitional Military Council that will rule for 18 months before elections are held. The government and the National Assembly have been suspended, borders closed, and a two-week mourning period is underway.
Chad has been shaken by Déby’s sudden death. “The worst scenario would be a prolonged power vacuum, especially if the son doesn’t manage to rally others to him”, Yan St-Pierre of the MOSECON Group, a security analysis outfit, told The New Humanitarian.
A global rights group, Human Rights Watch has urged a short transition to democratic civilian rule and appealed to Chadian security forces, as well as armed groups, “to refrain from attacking civilians”.
On Tuesday, FACT rejected the new military council and vowed to fight on, saying in a written statement: “There can be no dynastic devolution of power. Chad is not a monarchy.”
Lingering threat
FACT, allied with the Libyan National Army of General Khalifa Haftar, has amassed significant weaponry through Haftar’s links to the United Arab Emirates during his war to seize power in Tripoli, according to Andrew Lebovich at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Haftar’s recent political and military setbacks have left FACT soldiers free to head south.
Based in southern Libya, it remains a threat to the interim government. Its forces crossed into Chad on April 11, election Day, and as several columns raced towards the capital, N’Djamena, Western governments called on their citizens to leave the country.
The advance was eventually stopped amid heavy fighting and pushed back towards the border.
To counter FACT’s incursion, some Chadian troops were reportedly withdrawn from the regional five-nation G5 force fighting jihadist groups in the Sahel, and analysts say that continued instability in Chad could weaken that multinational effort.
“Certainly, the transitional government will see a need to not only shore up its own stability, but also continue to fight a rebellion that managed to get fairly close to N’Djamena”, Lebovich told The New Humanitarian.
There are similar concerns in Nigeria, where Chadian troops have assisted the government in its long-running conflict with Boko Haram and its rival offshoot, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP).
If the political succession in N’Djamena is not orderly, “then the resulting conflict will see the whole Chadian front of the war against ISWAP and Boko Haram collapse”, regional security researcher Fulan Nasrullah said.
Western governments turned a blind eye to Déby’s rights record, seeing him as an important military partner. Chad is the base of France’s Operation Barkhane, a roughly 5,100-strong military intervention that since 2014 has been fighting jihadist groups in the Sahel.
A potential French withdrawal from its politically unpopular military intervention hinges on regional forces carrying a larger share of the burden – and Chad had recently contributed 1,200 troops to the G5 and its counter-
