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OO RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHGI RUEHJO RUEHMA RUEHMR RUEHPA RUEHRN RUEHROV
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DE RUEHNJ #0152/01 1261335
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 061335Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6890
INFO RUEHZO/AFRICAN UNION COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUCNFUR/DARFUR COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHMFISS/HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 NDJAMENA 000152 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AF/C AND AF/USSES 
NSC FOR GAVIN AND HUDSON 
LONDON FOR POL -- LORD 
PARIS FOR POL D'ELIA AND KANEDA 
ADDIS ABABA ALSO FOR AU 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM PINR CD
SUBJECT: CHAD'S ELECTORAL REFORM COMMITTEE LAMENTS "LACK OF 
POLITICAL WILL" 
 
REF: A. NDJAMENA 89 
     ¶B. NDJAMENA 139 
     ¶C. NDJAMENA 147 
 
This cable is sensitive but unclassified.  Not for Internet 
dissemination. 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1.  (SBU)  In several recent meetings with Embassy officers 
and TDY visitors, members of the Chadian Electoral Reform 
Committee (ERC) have complained that lack of political will 
continues to plague preparations for 2010-11 elections in 
Chad.  Lol Mahamat Choua, opposition figure and current 
President of the Committee, told Acting AF/C director Siria 
Lopez May 4 that the entire Committee -- both government and 
opposition reps -- was in agreement with conclusions 
presented the previous week by visiting jurists from the 
Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, to the effect 
that the GoC could overcome technical difficulties having to 
do with electoral law simply by issuing a clarifying decree. 
According to Choua, the GoC needed international 
encouragement if it were to be expected to implement the 
recommendations of the international jurists.  Choua himself 
spent more time outlining obstacles to holding elections as 
scheduled than he did offering willingness to take concrete 
actions to move the process forward.  END SUMMARY. 
 
------------------------ 
ADVICE FROM FRANCOPHONIE 
------------------------ 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  Following meetings in March (Ref A) involving 
visiting French FM Bernard Kouchner, who admonished Chad's 
Electoral Reform Committee to move forward with planning 
credible national elections as envisioned in the August 13, 
2007 Accord (Ref B), the International Francophone 
Organization (OIF) dispatched two legal experts to Chad to 
help end disagreements over electoral law that have long 
divided portions of the Chadian body politic.  The two 
experts, one from France and the other from Benin, presented 
their conclusions April 30 in a session before the Electoral 
Reform Commission that the U.S. attended (along with others 
from the diplomatic corps) as an observer. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  The jurists addressed questions on which 
differences have emerged between the GoC and members of 
Chad's National Assembly, in part because some provisions in 
the Chadian Constitution seem inconsistent with subsequent 
laws and regulatory measures (among them the August 13 
Accord), and in part because the respective competencies of 
the GoC, National Assembly and CENI (Comite Electoral 
Nationale Independente) are not clearly spelled out in 
Chadian law.  Among the questions addressed by the 
international jurists were how to facilitate voting by nomads 
but not encourage them to vote multiple times, how to define 
appropriate population thresholds for additional legislative 
seats, and whether to insist that sitting members of the 
National Assembly retain party affiliation (the "fidelity 
clause" in the August 13 Accord.) 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  The jurists concluded that based on precedent set 
in legal traditions in various French-speaking states, most 
current election-related disagreements in Chad could be 
resolved if the GoC were simply to issue a decree laying out 
linkages between the various instruments with a bearing on 
the upcoming electoral process here.  (Embassy has obtained a 
copy of the experts' draft "projet de decret" and has 
provided it to Washington.)  Electoral Reform Committee 
Chairman Lol Mahamat Choua thanked the jurists for their 
efforts but intimated that since they had examined relevant 
electoral law in some French-speaking states, they should 
continue their research to determine what law in all such 
states might say.  Members of the diplomatic community 
criticized Choua for not taking the recommendations of the 
experts and urging their implementation immediately. 
 
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FOOT-DRAGGING 
------------- 
 
NDJAMENA 00000152  002 OF 002 
 
 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  Visiting AF/C Acting Director Siria Lopez, who met 
with Choua May 4, made clear that following progress on 
Chad-Sudan relations (Ref C), international attention would 
shift to Chad's ability to proceed with democratization, 
including through elections in 2010-2011.  Choua indicated 
that although the entire Committee was in agreement with the 
conclusions of the OIF experts, there was "lack of political 
will" on the part of the government to follow through on 
their recommendations.  Choua added that the USG and other 
international players should press the GoC to take action and 
issue the draft decree ("projet de decret") prepared by the 
jurists if early action was desired. 
 
------------------------ 
ELECTORAL REFORM PROCESS 
------------------------ 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  Some progress is being made on electoral 
prerequisites, including preliminary work for the national 
demographic census, a multidonor effort toward which the USG 
is contributing.  Having recently completed the mapping 
exercise and most of the training for census agents, Chad's 
Census Bureau will proceed with the actual census during the 
two-week period of May 20 to June 4.  As the rainy season 
intensifies in the weeks afterward, making movement within 
Chad problematic, the electoral census -- i.e., voter 
registration -- will only begin after the dry season begins, 
presumably in September.  Both the demographic and electoral 
censuses are among the electoral prerequisites on which the 
government and opposition have agreed. 
 
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COMMENT 
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¶7.  (SUB)  Choua and his colleagues spent more time outlining 
obstacles to elections than offering proof of willingness to 
move the process forward.  With respect to the projet de 
decret, which is an obvious tool for jump-starting efforts to 
resolve long-standing technical disputes, the members of the 
Committee seemed more inclined to rely on outside assistance 
than on an effort from within.  Embassy has long been of the 
view that the opposition and GoC alike are content enough 
with the status quo -- salaries for National Assembly 
members, for Committee members, etc., so long as there is no 
movement toward elections -- that holding the vote as 
scheduled could be quite a slog, despite progress on the 
census. 
NIGRO