Chad’s authoritarian president, Mahamat Idriss Déby, could rule for life. Parliament’s approval of constitutional changes in October 2025 removed the two-term limit for presidents and extended terms from five to seven years. A revised article 77 allows the president to lead a political party, a role Déby assumed in January 2025 when he became president of the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS), founded by his father and in power for over three decades.

The government presented the changes as technical revisions needed to modernise institutions, but fast-tracked them through parliament to avoid debate. The abolition of term limits removed a key check on executive power, violating the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, which prohibits constitutional amendments that obstruct democratic changes of government. Civil society condemned the dismantling of democratic safeguards. Opposition lawmakers called it a constitutional coup and boycotted the vote.

Déby’s power grab was methodically constructed. In August, the government neutralised the last viable opposition leader, Succès Masra of the Les Transformateurs party, sentencing him to 20 years in prison on charges of inciting intercommunal violence that left at least 42 people dead in the southern town of Mandakao. The trial was widely viewed as politically motivated, conveniently timed weeks before the parliamentary vote. With Masra in prison, the constitutional changes faced no meaningful opposition.

De facto rule legitimised

Over four years, military rule has given way to ostensibly civilian governance while the same family has stayed in charge. Déby came to power in April 2021 following the death of his father, Idriss Déby Itno, who’d ruled since 1990. Déby Itno had been able to stay in office for over 30 years by manipulating institutions: he’d scrapped term limits in 2005, reinstating them only in 2018, but with longer terms. When he died, the military installed his son at the head of a Transitional Military Council instead of following the constitution, which required the president of the National Assembly to assume power and organise elections within 90 days.

What followed was a choreographed sequence of events designed to legitimise Déby’s rule. In December 2023, a constitutional referendum, boycotted by civil society and the opposition, was reportedly approved by 86 per cent of voters. The new constitution enabled Déby’s candidacy, lowering the minimum age for president to 38 – Déby was 39 – and requiring both parents to be Chadian citizens, a provision his main rivals struggled to meet.

In February 2024, a few months before the May presidential election, a decree removed the president of the National Human Rights Commission, which was about to publish an account of events in October 2022, when security forces fired live ammunition at protesters, killing and injuring many, and arrested hundreds. When an attack on intelligence service offices on 27 February left several people dead, the authorities blamed it on militants from the Parti Socialiste Sans Frontières led by Yaya Dillo, a vocal opposition leader. Dillo was killed the next day when security forces raided his party’s headquarters. Twenty-six people arrested during the assault remained detained incommunicado when the presidential election was held.

In March 2024, the Constitutional Court barred 10 presidential candidates, including outspoken opposition figures Nassour Ibrahim Neguy Koursami and Rakhis Ahmat Saleh, claiming there were administrative irregularities in their applications. This prompted the opposition platform Wakit Tama to call for a boycott of the vote.

Authorities severely curtailed media freedoms. The High Authority for Media and Broadcasting banned all interactive broadcasts during the campaign and suspended at least 19 radio stations, 24 print newspapers and seven online newspapers, including two outlets, Al-Idath and Le Libérateur, that complied with all legal requirements.

As the election approached, the Electoral Agency for the Management of Elections prohibited people taking photographs and videos of results and publishing them on social media, which civil society and opposition groups planned to do to prevent election fraud. On election day, authorities arrested 76 opposition activists on accusations of forging accreditation documents to access polling stations, which the activists denied. The European Union reported that 2,900 civil society members it had trained to observe the election were denied accreditation.

The Chadian branch of the regional civil society group Tournons La Page concluded that far from ensuring electoral integrity, the Constitutional Council, Electoral Agency for the Management of Elections and High Authority for the Media and Audiovisual had enabled an opaque process that made it impossible to independently verify results. Amid fraud accusations, Déby was credited with 61 per cent of the vote, while his main challenger Masra was recorded as having received 18.5 per cent. When provisional results were announced, security forces celebrated by firing weapons into the air, killing at least 11 people and injuring hundreds.

Parliamentary elections held in December 2024 under an opposition boycott delivered 124 of 188 seats to the MPS. In February 2025, the MPS secured 43 of 46 elected seats in Chad’s first-ever Senate elections. The MPS now controls all formal structures of government.

Collapsed civic space

Following the elections, civil society, independent media and opposition voices have faced systematic repression through arbitrary detention, citizenship revocation, protest bans and surveillance.

In August 2025, Reporters Without Borders documented a persistent campaign of surveillance and intimidation targeting journalists over an 18-month period. This drove some into exile or hiding, while others abandoned their work.

Three journalists, including Monodji Mbaidiguim Olivier, editor-in-chief of Le Pays and RFI correspondent, were arrested and detained in March 2025 on charges of ‘communication with agents of a foreign power and intelligence likely to harm Chad’s military or diplomatic situation’, which carries a sentence of up to five years.

In September 2025, Déby signed a decree revoking the citizenship of Makaila Nguebla, a blogger, human rights activist and founder of the TchadOne platform, and journalist Charfadine Galmaye Saleh, both currently in exile. The government accused them of working with foreign powers and activities incompatible with Chadian citizenship. This has had a chilling effect, as people now fear losing basic rights and legal protections for exercising free speech.

Others have faced abduction and forced disappearance. In May 2025, Les Transformateurs activist Siguidé Djimtoïdé was arrested after criticising the government. While held at the Directorate of Intelligence and Investigations, he was reportedly forced to make statements against his party. In July 2025, Abakar Adam Abakar, a former intelligence officer and activist known for his criticism of the government, was abducted from his home by men in military uniforms and taken to an unknown location. The Ministry of Justice has failed to open an official investigation.

Authorities have also systematically banned peaceful protests. In April 2025, they prohibited a march planned by graduates from teacher training colleges to demand integration into the public service. In May, they banned a nationwide protest called by the National Union for Change to demand the release of detained opposition figures. In September, the Ministry of Public Security prohibited protests planned by two opposition parties. The government has forcibly cancelled civil society gatherings.

In June, the public prosecutor prohibited civil society groups and journalists from conducting independent investigations into the Mandakao massacre, warning that attempts to do so could lead to prosecution.

The closure of all avenues for dissent enabled the constitutional changes to be passed with no meaningful opposition.

Bleak prospects

The combination of civic space restrictions, constitutional manipulation, opposition suppression and electoral fraud has created the conditions for indefinite single-party rule. The MPS controls both legislative chambers, the judiciary functions as an instrument of executive control and independent media have been silenced or intimidated into self-censorship. Voter apathy acknowledges that elections can’t produce meaningful change. Despite official claims, turnout in the 2024 elections was low as many voters stayed home, recognising the results were predetermined.

External pressures could counter domestic repression, but international responses have been consistently inadequate. Chad’s strategic importance for regional security, particularly in fighting jihadist insurgency in the Sahel, has long insulated its authoritarian rulers from meaningful accountability. France maintained its backing of the Déby family for decades, including through the latest fraudulent presidential election, only ending military cooperation in November 2024 after Chad took the initiative to terminate their agreement as part of a broader regional pivot away from western powers. France’s withdrawal of some 1,000 troops wasn’t a principled stand against authoritarianism but rather an expulsion from the Sahel following similar withdrawals from Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

The USA temporarily withdrew around 75 special forces personnel in April and May 2024 over a Status of Forces Agreement dispute, only to bring them back in September 2024 after reaching a new understanding with Déby. Neither France nor the USA showed any willingness to leverage their security partnerships to pressure Chad on democratic governance.

The European Union’s response has been tepid. After funding election monitors who were systematically excluded and despite extensive documentation of electoral irregularities and violence, it has adopted no sanctions or other measures. Meanwhile Chad’s growing ties with China, Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates provide alternative economic and security partnerships with no attached concerns about democracy and human rights.

Without institutional checks, meaningful opposition, independent media or international pressure, there appears little prospect for democratic change. Unless something fundamental changes – whether through renewed civil society mobilisation or international political shifts – Chad’s future looks to be continued dynastic authoritarian rule.

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