Living by the Gun in Chad by Marielle Debos

The question of how to transfer power is made more complex because the current regime’s repressive tactics and divide-and-rule strategy have hindered the formation of a strong civilian opposition. The country may be plunged into crisis if arrangements are not made in advance for a Déby successor.Although power remains concentrated within Déby’s ethnic group, the regime has been able to co-opt elites from other regional and ethnic backgrounds.Déby has been able to retain his grip on the presidency thanks to an unpopular modification of the constitution in 2005 and subsequent rigged elections up to and including the contested 2016 vote. The root causes of the various crises that have beset Chad have never been addressed.Meanwhile, austerity measures have triggered strikes and massive protests in a country where most citizens are desperately poor.

The severe economic problems facing Chad, however, have deeper roots.

An oil-producing country, Chad has been hit hard by the drop in global oil prices.

Its military intervention against Boko Haram makes it a target for that extremist group, and although N’Djamena is sometimes seen as a bulwark of regional stability, its interference abroad, notably in the Central African Republic, has had a destabilizing impact.

Chad is still vulnerable to regional threats.

This new role gives President Idriss Déby Itno, who took power by force in 1990, global political capital and leads international partners to turn a blind eye to his country’s weak democracy.

In recent years, thanks to its military interventionism, Chad has acquired a new regional and international status.

This report examines the country’s political system, which has kept President Idriss Déby in power for twenty-seven years, and the country’s recent foreign policy, which is notable for a series of regional military interventions, to assess Chad’s current and future regional role. Thanks to both an oil boom and corruption, segments of the Chadian elite have become very rich, but most of the population is mired in poverty. Since gaining its independence from France in 1960, Chad has evolved from a one-party state into a multiparty regime, endured successive rebellions, and become an interventionist regional actor.

Living by the Gun in Chad by Marielle Debos