Chad’s President Idriss Déby has died of his injuries following clashes with rebels in the north of the country at the weekend, the army has said. This announcement came a day after provisional election results projected he would win a sixth term in office.
Mr Déby, 68, spent three decades in power and was one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders.
Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno will lead the council but “free and democratic” elections will be held once the transition period is over, the army said on Tuesday.
The exact circumstances of Deby’s death were not immediately clear. The army said the president had been commanding his army at the weekend as it battled rebels who had launched a major incursion into the north of the country on election day on April 11.
Agouna also said a military council led by the late president’s 37-year-old son, four-star General Mahamat Idriss Deby, would replace him. The government and parliament have been dissolved, and a curfew has been imposed with the country’s borders shut in the wake of the president’s death
Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reported, that the establishment of the military council is not in Chad’s constitution.
“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,” she said.
