Chadian president Idriss Déby Itno passed away last Tuesday. The one who had been ruling the country for more than thirty years after a coup d’état in 1990 was killed on the battlefield following operations against the rebels, according to the army.

Idriss Déby had just been reelected president of Chad in April for a sixth presidential term of office. Professional soldier and supreme chief of the armies, the sixty-eight-year-old man, according to the communiqué, was injured last weekend after fighting against members of the FACT, a rebel group that wants to overthrow the Chadian government and take N’Djamena, the Chadian capital city. 

He did not recover and died a few days later, leaving the country without their long-lasting ruler who was about to run the nation for the next couple of years after the results of the election that happened to be nearly unanimous (79,32% of the votes for Déby).

Idriss Déby was the kind of president that does not enjoy alternation nor change. Leaving extraordinarily little room for a political opposition and doing everything to prevent public gathering and demonstrations, the former president was called an intimidator by the ones who criticize him and his methods. 

Chad met a lot of issues regarding human rights when he was in office, fewer in the recent times, and the president-soldier did not hesitate to appoint members of his family and his close circle for the key functions of the presidency. Unwilling to share power, Idriss Déby also removed the post of prime minister in the last years to give him, if it was possible, still more power and influence.

While his funerals took place last Friday in presence of French president Emmanuel Macron, Idriss Déby will be temporarily replaced by one of his sons, general Mahamat Idriss Déby, thirty-seven years old, who will run a military council of transition composed of fifteen members close to the dead president.

Both the government and the national assembly were dissolved. Elections are expected to take place in eighteen months.

Sources: www.lemonde.fr