(29 Dec 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
N’djamena, Chad – 29 December 2024
1. Various of voters in line at polling station
2. Wide of polling station staff
3. SOUNDBITE (French) Kathima Bagadaye, voter:
“It’s going well. There are no problems. We’re voting in peace, there’s nothing special (to report).”
4. Close of ballot boxes
5. Close of ballots
6. Various of people voting
7. SOUNDBITE (French) Mahamat Issa Hissein, voter.
“We wish everyone good luck and hope that the people we voted for do a good job for a better Chad, a Chad with a future. We hope for a new page and that Chad will change with this new team.”
8. Various of polling station
STORYLINE:
Voters lined up to cast their ballots in Chad’s parliamentary and regional elections on Sunday which are set to end a three-year transitional period from military rule .
The parliamentary election is the first in more than a decade in Chad and comes months after the junta leader, Mahamat Idriss Deby, won a disputed presidential vote that was meant to return democracy.
Deby took power in 2021 following the death of his father and longtime president Idriss Deby Itno, who spent three decades in power.
The main opposition is boycotting Sunday’s vote after accusing authorities of not overseeing a credible electoral process.
One voter who cast his ballot at a polling station in the capital, N’djamena, said he thought the vote was "going well".
"There are no problems," Kathima Bagadaye said. "We’re voting in peace, there’s nothing special" to report, he added.
“We wish everyone good luck and hope that the people we voted for do a good job for a better Chad," said Mahamat Issa Hissein, another voter in the capital.
"We hope for a new page and that Chad will change with this new team."
The oil-exporting country of 18 million people, among Africa’s poorest, had not had a free and fair transfer of power since it became independent from France in 1960.
The elections this year are the first in junta-led countries in Africa’s Sahel region in a promised but delayed return to democracy.
At least 8 million voters are registered to elect 188 legislators in the Central African nation’s new National Assembly.
Representatives at the provincial and municipal levels will also be elected. Results are expected in about two weeks.
More than 10 opposition parties are boycotting the vote, including the main Transformers party, whose candidate, Succes Masra, came second in the presidential election.
The party has criticized the parliamentary election, as well as the presidential vote that many observers were banned from, as a “charade” and a ploy for Deby to remain in power to continue a “dynasty."
Masra briefly served as prime minister earlier this year after returning from exile before he resigned to run for president.
Sunday’s election comes at a critical period for Chad, which is battling several security challenges from Boko Haram militant attacks in the Lake Chad region to the break in decadeslong military ties with France, its key ally.
===========================================================
Clients are reminded to adhere to all listed restrictions and to check the terms of their licence agreements. For further assistance, please contact the AP Archive on: Tel +44(0)2074827482 Email: info@aparchive.com.
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/da10b544313645a783bed0fef652c0c0
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in January 3, 2025, 6:05 pm.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
