Slain President Déby’s son named new leader of Chad

General Mahamat Idriss Déby will “occupy the functions of the president of the republic” and also serve as head of the armed forces.

CAPE TOWN, April 21 (ANA) – Chad’s slain leader Idriss Déby’s son will take over as president of the country in place of his father, who died on Tuesday.

According to a charter released by the presidency on Wednesday, the 37-year-old General Mahamat Idriss Déby has been swiftly named transitional leader of a military council and will occupy the functions of the president of the republic while also serving as head of the armed forces, international broadcaster Al Jazeera reported.

The 68-year-old Déby, who had been in power for three decades, died of injuries sustained on the front line while fighting rebels in the north of the Sahel on Tuesday, according to army spokesperson General Azem Bermandoa Agouna.

His death was announced a day after he was declared the winner of the country’s presidential election held on April 11 with 79.3%, according to results released on Monday. He came to power in a rebellion in 1990 and was looking to extend his three-decade rule despite mounting calls for political change.

News agency AFP said the charter repeals the preceding constitution and will be implemented as the “basic law of the republic”, according to its terms.

Déby’s son has also been named “supreme head of the armed forces”, it said. He oversaw his father’s security as head of the elite presidential guard and had often appeared alongside him, according to AFP.

He signed a decree on Tuesday, setting out a military council with 15 generals, including himself and 14 others known to have been part of the late president’s circle of loyalists.

Meanwhile, opposition politicians in Chad have rejected the army’s appointment of the former president’s son.

The rebels have also objected to the move, saying “Chad is not a monarchy.”

Calling for calm, the army announced a 6pm curfew and shut the country’s borders, while suspending the constitution and dissolving the national assembly, according to Al Jazeera.

Experts say that under Chadian law, the speaker of parliament should have taken power after Déby’s death and not his son.

“What the constitution says is that in the absence of the president or in case he dies, then the speaker of the parliament takes charge of the country for 40 days and so a transition is put in place until elections are held,” Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from the capital Ndjamena, said earlier on Tuesday.

“But the military announced that the legislative assembly has been dissolved and that the constitution also has been dissolved, so what they are doing is that they replaced the constitution with their own set of rules.”

– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher