Masra, a candidate in the presidential election held on Monday for the Les Transformateurs party, is running against the transitional president and head of the military junta in power for the past three years, General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, who appointed him prime minister on January 1.

The party and the Justice and Equality Coalition that supports it denounced on Facebook "serious threats and violence" directed at its supporters and "arbitrary detentions" since the vote, "the refusal of access to polling stations" to observe the count, "unimaginable violations, including live ammunition fire, to seize ballots and minutes".

The party also called "on the population to remain vigilant and mobilized to defend the will expressed at the polls".

On Tuesday, the European Union (EU) regretted the removal of 2,900 civil society observers in Chad, which it said undermined the "transparency" of the presidential election held on Monday.

Before the vote, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had also expressed doubts about the "credibility" and transparency of the electoral act, which they considered, in line with the opposition, as a foregone conclusion in favor of General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, proclaimed head of state by the army after the death of his father, the former dictator of Chad, Idriss Déby Itno.

On Sunday, four Chadian civil society organizations, including the Chadian League for Human Rights (LTDH), protested the electoral commission's refusal to issue accreditation to 2,900 of its members to "observe the vote", despite requests submitted "within the established deadlines".

The presidential election, which should end three years of military rule, pitted the transitional president, Déby, against a former opponent, Succès Masra, who joined the junta and was appointed prime minister by the general at the beginning of the year.

The opposition, whose candidates with the greatest impact on Déby were eliminated from the race, had called for a boycott of a vote that it considered intended to "perpetuate a 34-year Déby dynasty".

The opposition considers Masra a "traitor", whose candidacy was only intended to give a "democratic veneer" to the vote. But Masra attracted large crowds during the campaign, to the point that he is now claiming victory.

The result of the election must be known by May 21, the deadline for the validation of the process by the Constitutional Council, made up of elements trusted by Mahamat Déby.

No calendar is known for a possible second round of these presidential elections, nor is it known when the legislative elections will be held, which should have preceded this vote, under penalty of this inverse process producing "clientelism" rather than "real parties running for the Chadian parliament", as the analyst from the Institute for Securities Studies (ISS) for Central Africa, Remadji Hoinathy, recently told Lusa.

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