N’DJAMENA: Chad’s new Prime Minister Allamaye Halina announced his first government on Monday marking an end to three years of military rule in the desert nation.

Senior ministers, mostly allies of President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, were kept on in the cabinet decree read out on public television.

The former ambassador to China was appointed on Thursday just before junta leader Deby, an army general, was sworn in as president after an election victory contested by the opposition.

The government will have 35 ministers, 23 of whom served in the previous administration.

Halina’s predecessor Succes Masra resigned last Wednesday after his defeat in the presidential election. The economist had only been in office for four months.

None of the ministers from Masra’s Transfor­mers party were retained in the new government.

Deby officially won 61 per cent of the May 6 vote that international NGOs said was neither credible nor free and which his main rival called a “masquerade”.

Before his swearing in, Deby declared a “return to constitutional order” and pledged to be “the president of Chadians from all backgrounds and of all sensibilities”.

He was proclaimed transitional president in April 2021 by a junta of 15 generals after his father, president Idriss Deby Itno, was shot dead by rebels after 30 years in power.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2024