Chad’s Leader Orders Military Crackdown After Opposition Calls for Poll Boycott

Chad’s transitional President, General Mahamat Idriss Deby, has ordered his military to arrest angry civilians and make sure peace reigns in the run-up to the May 6 presidential election and afterwards.

Opposition and civil society groups, which have called for a boycott of the vote, which they dismiss as a sham, acknowledge that some civilians have attacked members of the Deby’s campaign team.

Chad’s transitional President, General Mahamat Idriss Deby, says he will not allow anyone to disrupt the Central African country’s May 6 presidential election.

Deby is running as the candidate of the patriotic salvation movement, or MPS, Chad’s former ruling party, against nine challengers.

He told state TV on Wednesday that government troops have been quelling confrontations between his supporters and opposition followers in towns and villages across the country since the presidential campaign was launched on April 14.

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He said that among those promoting violence are opposition figures whom Chad’s constitutional council barred from running for president.

Among those barred from running was Djimet Clemen Bagaou, a former army colonel who is president of the democratic party of Chadian people or PDPT.