Chad's Junta Chief Wins Election

Chad's junta chief Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno won this week's presidential election in the first round, according to provisional official results released, extending his family's decades-long grip on power.

Monday's vote aimed to end three years of military rule in a country crucial to the fight against jihadism across Africa's Sahel desert region.

The ANGE electoral commission said Deby won 61.03 percent of votes, beating Prime Minister Success Masra, who garnered only 18.53 percent, in results due to be confirmed by the Constitutional Council.

"I am now the elected president of all Chadians," Deby said in a brief televised address, promising to make good on his "commitments".

Masra had earlier claimed victory and warned Deby's team would rig the results.

Soldiers in the N'Djamena neighborhood where Masra's party is based fired their guns in the air after the results were announced, both in celebration of Deby's win and to deter protesters from gathering.

Meanwhile, near the presidential palace in central N'Djamena, Deby's supporters shouted, sang, sounded car horns and fired their own guns in the air in celebration.

Masra, a former opposition leader appointed prime minister in January, urged Chadians to "mobilize peacefully to prove our victory".

Deby and Masra faced eight other candidates who were either relatively unknown or considered not hostile to the regime.

Former premier Albert Pahimi Padacke placed third with 16.91 percent of votes in an election that saw a turnout of 75.89 percent.

Deby was proclaimed transitional president by fellow army generals in 2021 after his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who had ruled Chad with an iron fist for 30 years, was killed in a gun battle with rebels.

Chad has remained a firm ally of traditional security partner France, whose forces in recent years have been ousted by military regimes in former African colonies including Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.