President granted possible third term mandate

Parliament on Wednesday approved an amendment of the constitution that could allow President Idriss Deby to seek a third term in office amid an opposition boycott. However, the two-thirds approval needed was a formality as the governing Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS) have a substantial majority in parliament, with 113 out of the 155 seats, officials said. Tempers flared in the pre-vote debate. “Just leave the room! You only came to disturb the proceedings,” Nassour Guelendksia, the MPS president of the national assembly, told opposition representatives who had gathered in parliament for Wednesday’s noon vote. Human rights activists said that the ruling party did everything it could to exclude the 31 opposition members from the debate. “The ruling party members did their utmost to prompt the opposition representatives to leave the room. The MPS should not have done that,” Dobian Assingar, the President of the Chadian League of Human Rights told IRIN. The government backed parliamentary commission that prepared the debate documents said that a revision of the constitution was necessary. "After eight years of existence, the revision of the constitution is inevitable and indispensable to correct its shortcomings," the report said. The proposed amendment was approved by 123 votes in favour, none against and one abstention. However, for changes to the national consitution to be ratified, a national referendum will have to take place. The Chadian constitution, adopted in 1996, limits the president to two consecutive five-year terms in office. Deby’s second term in office comes to an end in 2006. The 17 opposition parties have accused Deby of wanting to install himself in the presidency for life. They called for a national strike and urged people to demonstrate outside the National Assembly building on the day of the vote. Human rights defenders and trade unions have backed the opposition’s call. Most shops and businesses remained shut on the streets of the capital Ndjamena and the main market was much quieter than usual. “By shutting my shop, I join my brothers in saying there has to be an end to this dictatorship which has oppressed us for 14 years,” Abass Ali, a food seller in the Moursal area of south west of Ndjamena told IRIN. However, government workers were by and large in their offices. “There were not too many absences in the ministry,” a woman working in central government said. Security forces were out in force around the National Assembly buildings as the vote took place. No demonstrations were reported. The amendments were proposed by the MPS last November. As well as extending the presidential term, also included are proposals that could suppress the upper house, the Senate, and replace it with a social and economic “Council”. President Deby, 52, came to power in a coup d’etat in December 1990. Under pressure from international donors, he introduced multi-party democracy in 1996. Campaigning for re-election in 2001, Deby told a French newspaper in an interview: “I will not stand as a candidate in the 2006 presidential election. I will not change the constitution - even if I have a hundred percent majority”. Deby has made no further declaration on the matter since. Earlier this month, Deby said the government had suppressed an army rebellion that had sought to assassinate him.