The outcome of the presidential election is no surprise in Chad, a country ruled with an iron fist by the same man for 30 years.
President Idriss Déby Itno was re-elected in the first round for a sixth term with 79.32% of the votes cast, according to official results announced on Monday.
The turnout was 64.81%, said the president of the Independent National Electoral Commission (Ceni), Kodi Mahamat Bam, delivering the official “provisional” figures.
The former and last Prime Minister of Idriss Déby, Albert Pahimi Padacké, came second with 10.32%.
The first woman to run for president, Lydie Beassemda, took third place with 3.16% of the vote.
A half-hearted vote
Nine candidates would officially compete against the outgoing president, but three had announced their withdrawal and advocated a boycott of the ballot, invoking the violent repression of all the "peaceful marches" organized for months to demand "alternation in power".
The Supreme Court had, however, kept their names on the ballots.
The re-election of Marshal Déby was widely anticipated by Chadians who voted half-heartedly on April 11.
The outgoing was indeed opposed to six candidates without political weight accused of being simple "foil", the power having dismissed, legally or by violence and intimidation, the tenors of a divided opposition.
Shots to celebrate the victory
Immediately after the results were announced, many activists from Idriss Déby's party, the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS), sang and danced in the central square of the Nation in N'Djamena.
Sporadic gunfire from automatic weapons rang out, with supporters of the president celebrating victory as in each of the previous five elections since he took power by force in 1990.
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