Chad

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Chad straddles the Sahara desert. It is a landlocked country of 1,284,000 square kilometers (495,625 square miles) with serious problems of water supply and soil quality. Chad is the fifth poorest country in the world, but a huge petroleum windfall could change its fortunes. Conflict and instability have also played a role in Chad's condition. For much of the 1970s and 1980s its border with Libya was a source of interstate conflict, and there have been intermittent border troubles with Nigeria and a more recent refugee crisis with Sudan. Chad has also experienced decades of civil war between armed movements from the north and south.

At independence in 1960, power was given to a Christian southerner, Nagarta Francois Tombalbaye (1918–1975), who ruled the country for several years despite an organized insurgency led by the National Liberation Front, a northern-based militia. The civil war aside, the country's chronic poverty led to an ungovernable situation, and the army seized power in 1975 under general Felix Malloum (b. 1932), another southerner. A brief period of power sharing ensued between 1978 and 1979 when the government formed an alliance with Hissene Habre's (b. 1942) Armed Forces of the North (FAN).

The breakdown of the Malloum–Habre alliance produced a new civil war in which the northern forces prevailed. A government of national unity was put in place following northern seizure of the presidency in 1980 under Goukkouni

Oueddei (b. 1947). Given the close ties between the northern forces and Libya, a merger between Chad and Libya took place in 1981.

The merger failed to instill stability in the country and fighting erupted between the National Unity Government (GUNT) and the FAN. To counter the Libyan imperialism, French and Zairean troops were deployed in the country. Hissene Habre eventually reestablished himself as president, and reconciliation between northern forces and the GUNT took place for much of the late 1980s. However, at a time when Habre seemed to be gaining international support as a statesman, his regime collapsed following a quick offensive led by a former army commander, Idriss Deby (b. 1952), in November 1990.

Although rebel movements opposed to the government still exist, the period since Deby's rise to power has been the most crisis-free period in the country's forty-four-year history. Deby won competitive elections in 1996 and 2001, but severe irregularities and heavy-handed intimidation existed. The post-1990 political system is presidential with all the powers controlled by Deby and his Movement for Patriotic Salvation. He appoints a prime minister who serves as head of the government coalition.

The National Assembly of 155 seats constitutes the unicameral legislative branch. The governing Movement for Patriotic Salvation has a huge majority of 110 of the seats. Members of parliament are elected for a four-year term from single member constituencies and thirty-four multimember constituencies.

The judiciary's highest court was called on to decide controversial electoral disputes in elections in the early 2000s. Although there is nominal commitment to independence, politics clearly interferes with its procedures.

One of the more positive results of Chad's relative stability is that petroleum deposits can now be exploited from the Doba basin. Chad, which long qualified as the sick-man of Africa, could be on the threshold of a healthy political and economic future.

Libya; Presidential Systems.

"Chad." CIA World Factbook. Washington, DC: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 2005. <http://www.cia.gov/cia/publicat ions/factbook/geos/cd.html>.

Mars, Laura. Nations of the World 2005: A Political, Economic and Business Handbook. Millerton, NY: Grey House Publishing, 2005.

Ramsay, F. Jeffress, ed. Global Studies: Africa, 10th ed. Guilford, CT: McGraw Hill/Dushkin, 2004.

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