Chad’s interim Prime Minister, Succès Masra, has submitted a petition to the Constitutional Council disputing the initial outcomes of the recent presidential election.
Despite General Mahamat Déby being announced as the winner with 61% of the vote, Mr. Masra asserts himself as the rightful victor.
“With the help of our lawyers, today we submitted a request to the Constitutional Council to reveal the truth of the ballot boxes,” Mr Masra announced in a social media post on Sunday.
The opposition leader and his party, the Transformers, have called for the nullification of the results, claiming that certain ballot boxes were tampered with and others were relocated by soldiers for counting elsewhere.
According to the party, several opposition members have been detained, and Mr. Masra along with his supporters have faced threats.
However, Mr Masra reiterated that his followers remain “peaceful for the love of our country”, insisting that “the change you want to see cannot happen in a destroyed country”.
Shortly before the announcement of the election results, Mr. Masra called on his supporters to mobilize for peaceful demonstrations to defend their votes.
The Constitutional Council is expected to make a decision in the coming days regarding whether to uphold the preliminary results or annul them, as requested by Mr. Masra and another candidate, Yacine Abdramane Sakine, who lost the election.
Although the council has not yet confirmed Mr. Déby as Chad’s new president, some heads of state, such as Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu and Guinea Bissau’s Umaro Sissoco Embalo, have already congratulated the military leader.