N’DJAMENA, Chad: Chad’s new Prime Minister Allamaye Halina announced his first government on Monday, marking the end of three years of military rule in the desert state.
Senior ministers, mostly allies of President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, stayed in the government decree read on public television.
The former ambassador to China was appointed on Thursday, just days before army chief General Dabi was sworn in as president after winning a contested election.
The government will have 35 ministers, 23 of whom worked in the previous government.
Halina’s predecessor, Succes Masra, resigned last Wednesday after being defeated in the presidential election. The economist had only been in office for four months.
None of the ministers from Masra’s Transformers party remained in the new government.
READ ALSO: Pakistan Condemns Israeli Attack on Rafah Refugee Camp
Debi officially won 61 percent of the vote on May 6, but international NGOs said the vote was neither reliable nor free, and which his main rival termed a “masquerade.”
Before being sworn in, Deby announced a “return to constitutional order” and vowed to be “the president of Chad with all backgrounds and sensibilities.”
Deby was declared interim president by a junta of 15 generals in April 2021 after his father, President Idriss Deby Itno, who ruled for 30 years, was killed.
Chad, one of the world’s poorest nations, is seen as vital in the fight to halt the jihadists’ march across the Sahel region.
