Highlights: Chad: Opponent Max Kemkoye 'outraged' that MPS nominates Mahamat Idriss Déby for presidential election. In Chad, the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS) nominated the president of the transition as its candidate for the future presidential election on 13 January 2024. For Max KemKoye, "it is the notorious, violent, manifest expression of a dynastic succession", the opponent insisting on the fact that the MPS was created by the former leader of the country (1990-2021)

Chad: Opponent Max Kemkoye 'outraged' that MPS nominates Mahamat Idriss Déby for presidential election

In Chad, the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS) nominated the president of the transition, Mahamat Idriss Déby, as its candidate for the future presidential election on 13 January 2024. For Max Kemkoye, "it is the notorious, violent, manifest expression of a dynastic succession", the opponent insisting on the fact that the MPS was created by Idriss Déby Itno, the former leader of the country (1990-2021) and father of the current head of state.

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The President of Chad's Transitional Council, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno (center), arrives to attend the 63rd Independence Day celebrations in N'Djamena on August 11, 2023. AFP - DENIS SASSOU GUEIPEUR

By: RFI Follow

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In Chad, a country that has just entered the final stretch before general elections that are supposed to conclude a transition that began almost 3 years ago, the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS), the former party in power during the more than 30 years of reign of the late President Idriss Déby Itno, invested his son, on January 13, 2024, as a candidate for the future presidential election. Mahamat Idriss Déby took power on the death of his father in April 2021.

« It is the notorious, violent, manifest expression of dynastic succession »

Very few opponents have reacted so far. The president of the Union of Democrats for Development and Progress (UDP), Max Kemkoye, who also heads the Consultation Group of Political Actors, which brings together several parties, said he was "outraged" and "not at all surprised" by this choice, speaking to Esdras Ndikumana: "One, Mahamat Idriss Déby is a soldier. It is strictly forbidden for military personnel, even generals of the third section, i.e. retired generals, to have any political opinion or to be active in a political party. Two, he is not an activist of the political party, he is not an activist of the MPS...

The opponent affirms: "The only filiation he has is that he is the son of the late Idriss Déby Itno, founding president of the MPS, who was six times candidate of the MPS. With Idriss Déby Itno dead, only the child of Idriss Déby Itno can be a candidate. It is the notorious, violent, manifest expression of dynastic succession that can no longer be veiled today.

No date yet for the presidential election

Mahamat Idriss Déby, who will celebrate his 40th birthday this year, was proclaimed by a group of generals as transitional president on April 20, 2021, after the death of his father Idriss Déby Itno, killed at the front during fighting with FACT rebels.

He immediately promised elections after an 18-month transition, which was extended by two years in October 2022 following the holding of a disputed national dialogue, and which led to protests that were violently repressed. The date of the presidential election is still not known, but it must take place by next October at the latest.

Chad: Opponent Max Kemkoye 'outraged' that MPS nominates Mahamat Idriss Déby for presidential election

Chad: Opponent Max Kemkoye 'outraged' that MPS nominates Mahamat Idriss Déby for presidential election

« It is the notorious, violent, manifest expression of dynastic succession »

No date yet for the presidential election

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