Civil disobedience campaign postponed

A civil disobedience campaign called by the opposition has been postponed due to poor publicity, Jess Ramadjingar of the Comite d’information et de liaison des ONGs (CILONG) told IRIN on Monday.

“Information about the campaign did not reach the towns and villages and so it has been put back until the 31 July,” he said.

Six opposition leaders announced last week that they were planning a civil disobedience campaign on Monday against the government of President Idriss Deby. The six politicians, who lost to Deby during the May elections, claim that the polls were rigged. They say they have made numerous requests to the ruling party to improve the current climate but it has taken no concrete steps.

On 4 July, Abderamane Djasnabaille, who heads an umbrella group of some 30 opposition parties, called for a boycott of next year’s parliamentary elections to deny credibility to Deby’s government. Djasnabaille told a news conference in the Chadian capital, N’djamena, that massive public pressure was needed to force Deby into accepting a round-table debate on the country’s political problems, PANA reported.

Deby, who ousted Hissene Habre in 1990, was formally elected president in 1996.