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History and Government
History: Indications of population around the shores of Lake Chad date back to Neolithic times. The shores were for centuries an important junction for several major trans-Saharan caravan routes. From the 11th to the 15th century, the state of Kanem was the dominant force in the region, occupying much of the area that makes up present-day Chad. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the state of Borno, which had its centre on the other side of Lake Chad (in present-day Nigeria), exercised a major influence. A gradual process of Islamisation took place in the region from this time, especially during the 16th and 17th centuries during the kingdoms of the Bagirmi and Ouaddai. The slave trade was a key component of their economies and as this declined from the early 19th century onwards, so did the kingdoms. In the 1880s, riven by internecine feuding, they were conquered by the Sudanese warlord Rabih al-Zubair. The Europeans arrived a few decades later, in the latter stages of their carve-up of the African continent.
Chad was first defined as a national territory in 1910, as one of the four making up French Equatorial Africa. Chad achieved independence in 1960 with François Tombalbaye, leader of the Parti Progressiste Tchadien (PPT), as Prime Minister. Its history since then has been characterised by political instability and tensions, largely due to religious and cultural divisions between the Muslim north and Christian/animist south - a pattern that may be found in many other African countries, including Nigeria and Sudan.
The northern rebels organised around the Front de Libération Nationale du Tchad (FROLINAT). Tombalbaye was killed in a military coup in 1975 and the new regime sought a settlement with FROLINAT, who refused and three years later launched a successful offensive, which gave them control of the country. Within months of taking power, FROLINAT had split into factions around the movement’s leader and national President Goukouni Oueddei (backed by Libya), and Defence Minister Hissène Habré (backed by the French and subsequently the Americans). Fighting between supporters of the two escalated into full-scale war until 1982 when Habré’s forces captured the capital and installed him as President. Habré’s regime lasted until 1990 when he was overthrown by the former army commander, Idriss Déby.
Since taking power, Déby has managed to stabilise the political situation to some extent and install a working democratic constitution. Déby himself was elected to the Presidency by a comfortable majority in 1996. That result was repeated, despite some complaints over irregularities, at the most recent poll in May 2001. Déby’s political vehicle, the Mouvement Patriotique du Salut (MPS), controls the National Assembly, with a sizeable opposition party in the form of the Union pour le Renouveau et la Démocratie (URD) led by Wadal Abdelkader Kamougue. The main extra-parliamentary opposition is the Mouvement pour la Démocratie and la Justice au Tchad (MDJT), led by Déby’s ex-Defence Minister, Youssouf Toigimi, which launched an armed rebellion in the northern Tibesti region in October 1998. The government has an opportunity to develop the economy of what remains one of the poorest countries in the world, following the discovery of large oil deposits in the south of the country (see Economy section below). The oil factor has heightened interest in Chad – a relative international backwater – from outside. Relations with Paris are bad following the expulsion of the French Ambassador; those with the US and international institutions such as the World Bank (whose financing is essential to the oil project) are little better. Several of Chad’s neighbours, including Gabon and Nigeria, are running out of patience with Déby.
Government: Under the terms of the constitution adopted by national referendum in March 1996, the President is directly elected for a five-year term and holds executive power, assisted by an appointed Prime Minister and Cabinet. Legislative power is vested in a bicameral legislature, comprising the 125-strong National Assembly, which is directly elected a four-year term in a mixture of single-member and multi-member constituencies; and the Senate which is elected for a six-year term (one-third of which is renewed every two years).
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