Following the death of Chad’s president Idriss Déby who ruled his country with an iron-fist for 30 years, the country is likely to fall into chaos, which is often the case in postcolonial African countries following the end of autocratic rule.
Déby, 68, died last Monday from wounds suffered as he directed the government’s battle against rebels who had marched south across the Sahara from their Libyan outposts. Déby took power in a military coup in 1990, when he deposed the previous dictator, Hissène Habré.
Typically for African dictators at the end of the Cold War, he introduced multiparty elections, with the opposition being brutally suppressed, civil society banned and the media heavily regulated, to put a democratic veneer on his dictatorial rule.
The formal structures of democracy were in place in Chad, like many in African post-Cold War former colonial states, but the real power remained firmly with the leader and the ruling party, with no alternatives allowed in politics, business or civil society.
The usual postcolonial pattern is a dictator controlling power at all levels of society — politics, government and business — and favouring his ethnic group, region or military allies. Critics of the president, including government officials, regularly disappear mysteriously.
The dictator can often only be ousted by a military coup, assassination or, in the exceptional case of Déby, death on the battlefield.
The country has the highest levels of hunger in the world, with just under 90% of the rural population living in poverty.
Déby, from the country’s Zaghawa clan, remade himself, like many African dictators, as a key man in the US “war on terrorism”, which gave him a new lease on life, funds and military support from Western countries. But Déby, like many of such newly minted African leaders who marketed themselves as crusaders against Islamist terrorism, often lumped legitimate critics, opposition, the media and civil society as “terrorists” to be repressed.
Déby was rescued several times by Western powers from being ousted by rebels. One close shave was in 2008, when France militarily intervened to bolster him against the rapid advances of rebels. France has a regional base in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad.
Déby had joined last week’s battlefield, supposedly to boost the morale of his army, after he “won” an outrageously rigged presidential election with 79.3% of the vote. The opposition had been so brutalised that it boycotted the poll. Other contenders were simply banned from contesting. The election gave him a sixth term in office.
The attacking rebel group, the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), is now in the Kanem region, about 200km to the north of N’Djamena. FACT is based in southern Libya, a country in chaos after the Western-led “war on terror” toppled Muammar Gaddafi.
The Tripoli government has lost control of southern Libya, allowing it to become an area where many of the region’s insurgents can set up base.
FACT was established in 2016 from former military allies of Déby who fell out with him over his refusal to share power. They are not Muslim jihadists. It is instructive that the FACT statement following the death of Déby said: “We took up arms because there was no democratic space in Chad. A peaceful solution was not imaginable. We saw that Déby didn’t want to quit power.”
A transitional council of senior generals has been installed as the new government. Déby’s son, Mahamat Idriss Déby, has been installed as interim leader. Like many African dictators, even though he held so-called elections, Déby had been grooming his son as his successor to perpetuate dynastic rule.
Chad has been in conflict for 37 out of its 59 years of independence. In June 2016, the former Chad dictator Hissène Habré was sentenced by a special court in Senegal to life imprisonment after being convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Habre, who was president between 1982 and 1990, was sentenced by the Extraordinary African Chambers, a special court set up by the AU under an arrangement with Senegal. Habré was the first African leader to be prosecuted under the auspices of the AU.
The UN Development Index puts Chad at 185th place out of the 188 countries measured for human development. The country has the highest levels of hunger in the world, with just under 90% of the rural population living in poverty. In a 2017 survey of countries vulnerable to climate change, Chad was reported to be the most vulnerable.
Only a third of adults are literate. Youth unemployment is among the highest on the continent. Angry, resentful and unoccupied youth are ready material for religious fundamentalists.
Though Chad’s constitution argues for gender equality and the banning of child marriage and female genital mutilation, in practice discrimination, violence and sidelining of women are routine. Female genital mutilation and child marriage remain common.
Furthermore, although laws now provide for women having equal inheritance rights and the right to own land, the practice is the opposite. The economy is mostly dependent on oil exports and agriculture.
To prevent the country from breaking down and becoming a new haven for fundamentalist movements, Déby’s death should be seized as an opportunity for Chad to establish a transitional government of national unity (GNU) that includes the government, opposition parties and civil society. The military should withdraw to its barracks.
Genuine free, democratic elections should thereafter be held. Freedom of the media, association and expression should be mandatory. The AU and Western backers of Chad’s “war on terror” should support such a GNU. If not, the country will break down into bloody violence, ethnic conflict and become the new base for terrorism.
William Gumede is associate professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, and author of South Africa in Brics (Tafelberg).
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