The Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS), the party of Chad’s military leader Mahamat Idriss Deby, has won 43 out of 46 seats in the country’s first-ever senate elections, according to final results released on Tuesday.
The senatorial vote, held at the end of February, marked the final phase of a political transition that began when Deby took power following his father’s death four years ago.
Deby, who secured a five-year presidential term last May in an election boycotted by the opposition, has been consolidating his grip on power. International NGOs criticised the presidential vote as “neither free nor credible.”
Chad’s Constitutional Council confirmed in its final tally that two seats initially assigned to the MPS were reallocated to allied parties following appeals. Shortly after the results were announced, Deby appointed the remaining 23 senators needed to complete the chamber, which will represent the country’s autonomous communities.
The newly established senate is part of Chad’s bicameral parliament, created through a 2020 reform and later ratified under a new constitution in a December 2023 referendum.
In December’s legislative elections, the MPS also secured a dominant majority, winning 124 out of 188 seats in the lower house. Both elections were widely boycotted by opposition groups, who dismissed them as producing “pre-fabricated results.”
The elections took place against a backdrop of growing security concerns, including attacks by the jihadist group Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region and the recent termination of a military cooperation agreement with former colonial ruler France.
