General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, the junta commander, won the presidential election, and on Friday, Chadian soldiers fanned out across several of the capital’s areas.
Before the official results, which showed Deby with almost 61 percent of the vote cast on Monday, the presidential guard had strategically placed numerous armored vehicles on important crossroads and thoroughfares.
The number of soldiers in the streets on Friday, according to AFP reporters, seemed significantly higher than it had been before past elections.
The vote was proclaimed won by Prime Minister Succes Masra just hours before the official results were made public late on Thursday.
The prime minister-elect in January, a former opposition leader, had forewarned that Deby’s team would rig the results to secure his victory.
“Mobilize peacefully but firmly… to prove our victory,” Masra urged the people of Chad.
According to the electoral commission, Masra’s vote share was a mere 18.53 percent.
Three years prior, the army named Deby, now forty, as interim president following the assassination of his iron-willed father, Idriss Deby Itno, by rebel gunmen.
On Friday, there was no sign of increased security surrounding Masra’s Transformers party headquarters, which is located in the southern side of the capital.
Following the late-night announcement of the results on Thursday, soldiers had fired repeatedly into the air close to the party headquarters, both to celebrate Deby’s victory and to keep protestors away.
According to AFP correspondents, heavily armed presidential guard men sporting red berets were spotted on major thoroughfares on Friday, accompanied by a striking phalanx of armored cars.
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