Chad parliament adopts unlimited, seven-year presidential terms

Chad's parliament adopted on Friday a constitutional revision that extends presidential terms from five to seven years, renewable without limits.

The amendment was backed by 236 votes, with none against, out of the 257 members from both parliamentary chambers.

President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno was proclaimed transitional president by army generals in 2021 after his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who had ruled Chad for 30 years, was killed in a gun battle with rebels.

Deby promised an 18-month transition to democracy but extended it by two years.

After a new constitution was approved in a referendum in December 2023, Deby, 41, was elected president in May 2024 in voting that international observers said was not credible.

The amendment adopted on Friday foresees the president being elected for a seven-year term and states that he can be re-elected.

Under the current constitution, presidential terms are for five years and renewable only once.

The new longer mandate will only take effect at the next presidential election.

Friday's vote was brought forward from its originally planned date of October 13.

Members of the opposition National Rally of Chadian Democrats-The Awakening (RNDT) walked out of the chamber shortly before the vote, an AFP journalist saw.

Former prime minister Albert Pahimi Padacke, of the RNDT, said in a letter addressed to lawmakers ahead of the vote that the amendment was "unconstitutional and authoritarian".