Chad’s Military Ruler Mahamat Deby Names Transitional Parliament

Mahamat Idriss Deby, the head of Chad’s military government, has named 93 members of a new interim parliament, five months after declaring himself leader following the death of his father, longtime President Idriss Deby.

“The following people have been designated members of the National Transitional Council (NTC),” said the decree signed by the four-star general.

The military leader dissolved parliament and promised “free and transparent” elections in 18 months when he declared himself head of Chad’s Transitional Military Council on April 20.

Members of the former opposition of his father, who himself came to power in 1990 at the head of a rebel force, were among the members. There was no representation, however, from the opposition platform Wakit Tamma, or from the civil society organisations that have denounced the coup by the younger Deby.

The NTC “will act as a national assembly of transition” ahead of elections, according to a dossier distributed to the media.

On May 11, the military government – headed by Mahamat Deby and made up of 14 other generals – named former Prime Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke as interim prime minister.

Pahimi Padacke was runner-up in the country’s April 11 presidential election that was won by Deby and would have handed him a sixth term in office.

A little over a week later, Chad’s armed forces stunned the nation by announcing that Deby had died from wounds suffered while leading soldiers on the front line against Libya-based Chadian rebels advancing from the north towards the capital, N’Djamena. He was 68.

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