21,560,400 people
Source: Tyranny Tracker
HRF classifies Chad as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Chad is a semi-presidential republic. Head of State, Field Marshal Mahamat Idriss Déby, first seized power in a military coup in 2021 upon the sudden death of his father, Idriss Déby, and legitimized his rule by claiming victory in unfair and untransparent May 2024 elections. The father-to-son succession extends the Déby family’s three decades of dynastic rule and the dominance of the ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS) with the backing of the military, which plays a crucial role in Chadian politics. Since gaining independence from France in 1960, Chad has experienced continuous authoritarian rule and violent struggles for power in the form of armed rebellions, military coups, and a civil war. The country has never experienced a peaceful handover of power between elected heads of state, and all of Chad’s leaders have historically either been assassinated, overthrown, or forced to resign. Although a multiparty system was introduced in 1991, Chad’s democratization process completely stalled under the late former dictator Idriss Déby, who extended his rule for three decades by repeatedly amending the constitution to increase his powers and organizing unfree and unfair elections.
National elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete or possibly win. Since the country’s first multi-party polls in 1996, the ruling MPS has claimed victory in each of the national elections by an average margin of over 50 points from the nearest opposition party. More than three decades of MPS control over all public institutions and branches of government and repression against the real, mainstream opposition have given the party absolute and unfair supremacy in electioneering.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly challenge the regime. This includes arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, summary suspensions, threats, and extrajudicial killings. The regime systematically employs excessive force to crack down on dissenting protests.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. There is a significant lack of institutional accountability in Chad, primarily due to the state’s capture of judicial, legislative, and executive institutions. This translated into national institutions making decisions that favored the regime’s interests.
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