Chad’s junta leader General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno won the African nation’s May 6 presidential election with 61 percent of the vote, according to final results announced Thursday.
The Constitutional Council declared the winner and also rejected a bid by Prime Minister Succes Masra to annul the result. Masra had claimed victory and has called for peaceful protests.
Deby called the election to end three years of military rule in a country crucial in the fight against jihadism across Africa’s restive Sahel region. The regime has long muzzled opposition figures, however, and Deby’s main rival was killed in February.
Following the release of provisional results on May 9, Deby declared himself “the elected president of all Chadians” and promised to make good on his “commitments”.
Masra came second with 18.5 percent, while former prime minister Albert Pahimi Padacke won 16.9 percent, Constitutional Council president Jean-Bernard Padare said on Thursday.
The final results, with a turnout of 75.78 percent, are very close to the provisional results.
Masra, once a fierce Deby opponent before becoming prime minister four months ago, has accused the junta chief’s team of rigging the results and called on his supporters to “mobilise peacefully”.
But he has rarely appeared in public since provisional results were announced on May 9.
Early in the campaign, observers predicted a massive win for 40-year-old Deby, whose late father ruled Chad for three decades before him.
But economist Masra surprised everyone by gathering huge crowds during his campaign, leading him to claim he would be capable of winning or pushing Deby into a second round.
Opponents had called for a boycott of the vote, dismissing it as fixed.
The prime minister, also 40, faced accusations of being a stooge by the opposition and its leading figures barred from standing.
Observers are now questioning whether Masra will remain prime minister.