Tense poll passes off peacefully

President Idriss Deby ran for a third term as president of Chad on Wednesday shrugging off rebel threats of another attack on the dusty capital but many N’djamena residents spent the day hunkered in their homes. Only three weeks after a rebel attack on N’djamena left more than 200 dead, Deby defied national and international pressure to delay the polls, and under heavy guard, cast one of the first ballots of the day at a special booth at the Ministry of Agriculture. Opposition parties spent the weeks running up to the vote urging Chadians to boycott the poll in favour of national dialogue. “Some people wanted to block this election but it is essential for the country that we go ahead,” said a defiant Deby, addressing a crowd of supporters after polls opened at 8 a.m. local time. “There will be no boycott,” he added, before speeding back to the presidential palace kicking dust into N’djamena’s unusually empty streets. Many of the capital’s more affluent residents relocated over the river in neighbouring Cameroon, fearing a rerun of attacks by anti-Deby rebels that left swathes of the city’s eastern suburbs devastated by mortar fire and shelling. Wednesday was declared a public holiday, and most shops and offices stayed shuttered as the city’s remaining residents waited at home. There was a heavy military presence in the capital throughout the day. Most people on the streets said they were only out to vote before polls closed at 6 p.m. and many of those said they were voting for Deby. “I’m not worried about the result because my candidate is Deby, and he’s going to win,” said taxi driver Mahmout Alpharou, before speeding off to find people to carry to the hundreds of voting stations scattered throughout the sun-baked capital. Deby, president of 16 years, was the only candidate to have engaged in any serious campaigning, plastering his face and party logo throughout the capital and other major Chadian towns. Chad’s civil opposition, a fractious group of politicians many of whom were in government before Deby first seized power in a 1990 coup, had protested last year’s constitutional changes that enabled Deby to stand for a third time. The boycott appeared to have been heeded by a large number of Chadians. A government spokesman estimated only 30 percent of registered voters turned out, although foreign diplomats suggested even that was an overstatement. The results of the election will be announced on 14 May but independent verification of the results and turnout will not be possible as Deby’s government refused to let the elections be scrutinised by international election observers. The opposition’s absence was unpopular with some Chadians. “I am very upset - the boycott was not the right solution. It means if there had been just one ballot box in the whole of the city, Deby would have won anyway. It’s better to participate and make a protest that way,” said a grey haired man, who said he cast a spoiled vote. Among the other four contenders who did run, three are serving or former ministers in Deby’s government and one represents a little-known Socialist party. The election-day hush in N’djamena extended to Chad’s other main urban areas. “It’s unusually calm here,” said a foreign aid worker by telephone from the major eastern town Abeche. “The military is out on the street in force, but they do not look at all menacing”. There were unconfirmed reports of a heavy military presence in the southern city Sarh, which Western diplomats in N’djamena told IRIN could be linked to anti-Deby rebels grouping in the lawless northern provinces of neighbouring Central African Republic. A spokesman for President Deby’s campaign told reporters at 5 p.m., one hour before polls closed, that the calm and order throughout the day was an endorsement of the president. “The close of these elections is an indictment of everyone who said these elections were inopportune,” he said.