For want of an alternative, Paris is resigned to Déby winning a mandate
After 35 years of independence and 30 of civil war, Chad will hold its first pluralist election on 2 June. Once a warlord and now President, Idriss Déby is favoured to win, partly because the opposition will be split between fourteen rival presidential hopefuls. The Court of Appeal declared five others ineligible, including Adoum Maurice Hel Bongo, once President of the National Sovereign Conference, and Fidel Moungar, one of the three prime ministers during the transition that began in May 1993. The betting is not closed: Déby has been forced to campaign hard and many factors are involved in Chad's economic, ethnic and religious complexities.
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