Voting has begun in Chad\u2019s presidential election, a major step leading to the end of the country\u2019s three-year transition.<\/p>\n
The polls were marked by delays, opening one hour behind schedule in some areas.<\/p>\n
Transitional President Mahamat D\u00e9by kicked off the exercise by casting his ballot in the capital, N\u2019Djamena.<\/p>\n
He said he was proud to have fulfilled his promise to respect the deadline for \u201celections that will signal a return to constitutional order.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s up to the Chadian people to vote massively and choose their president,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will vote, it\u2019s our duty\u2026 even if it takes time,\u201d said a voter who stood in a long queue waiting for his turn to cast his ballot.<\/p>\n
Eight million voters are choosing the president from among 10 candidates, including the military leader D\u00e9by and the prime minister, Succ\u00e8s Masra.<\/p>\n
The preliminary results are expected by 21 May, but a second round could be held in June if there\u2019s no clear winner in the first round of the polls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Voting has begun in Chad\u2019s presidential election, a major step leading to the end of the country\u2019s three-year transition. The polls were marked by delays, opening one hour behind schedule in some areas. Transitional President Mahamat D\u00e9by kicked off the exercise by casting his ballot in the capital, N\u2019Djamena. He said he was proud to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"BBC","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,33],"tags":[475,2451,1209],"class_list":["post-11741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-politics","tag-chad","tag-chads-presidential-election","tag-mahamat-idriss-deby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}