In Chad, the Inclusive and Sovereign National Dialogue (DNIS) took up the most important topics: ConstitutionForm of State, eligibility (or not) of the leaders of the organs of the transition and Charter of the transition. The exercise is decisive for the political life of Chad after the disappearance of the President Idriss Déby Itno in April 2021 and the accession of his son to power, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno.
Several times postponed, the national dialogue finally opened on August 20, 2022 in N’Djamena, the Chadian capital, despite the boycott of the majority of the opposition and two of the most powerful armed rebel movements. The exchanges of the Plenary Assembly, which brings together 1,400 delegates supposed to represent all of Chadian society and divided into committees, were punctuated by numerous interruptions. The discussions, which were due to end on September 20, were thus extended by ten days.
Back to the contours of the national dialogue.
Purpose
The young General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, self-proclaimed Head of State at the head of a Military Council of 15 generals in April 2021, immediately promised the holding of a national reconciliation dialogue including “all” the opposition and “all” armed groups. Objective: the organization of elections “free and democratic” at the end of a “transition” of 18 months which is due to end in October.
“We are organizing this dialogue to turn the page on the transition and set up a democratic regime and an alternation”, explained to AFP the Minister of Communication and government spokesman, Abderaman Koulamallah. On August 8, after five months of discussions in Qatar, around forty armed groups signed a peace agreement with the junta in Doha. The latter, boycotted by two of the most important rebel factions, made it possible to launch the national dialogue.
Without everyone’s consent
The Front pour l’alternance et la concorde au Tchad (FACT), one of the main rebel groups at the origin of the offensive which cost the life of Idriss Déby, did not sign the Doha agreement and did not participate in the dialogue, considering it “biased in advance”. Similarly, the majority of opposition parties and civil society organizations grouped within a platform, Wakit Tamma boycott the DNIS.
They accuse Mahamat Déby Itno of trying to stay at the head of the country by only talking to people in power or close to him. The appointment of delegates has also been criticized. “We estimate that 80% of the members are close to the junta”, said Success Masra, the main opposition figure at the head of the Les Transformateurs party, a member of Wakit Tamma. At its start, the national dialogue again recorded several defections from civil society organizations.
rain of criticism
Since its launch, the national dialogue has been decried. “HAS the pace at which the work is progressing, some observers believe that the (national dialogue) could not lay the foundations for a new social contract”summed up the Chadian media Alwidha Info on September 28.
Criticisms of the process reached their climax when the handling of issues “thorny” has was entrusted to an ad-hoc commission. A decision “motivated by the respect of the schedule (…) adopted from the start of the work”said thehe general rapporteur of the national dialogue, Limane Mahamat, according to Tchadinfos. He also explained, reports Alwidha Info, “that we cannot engage in debates on fragmentary questions”.
The committee’s findings were presented on September 28. In particular, he proposed extending the transition for two years, keeping the head of the state as head of state, the head of the military junta, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, and then allow him to run for president at the polls. In the absence of the main opponents of the regime, there is little chance that the DNIS will reject these proposals, thus confirming the darkest predictions of the critics of the process.