Chad’s political history has been plagued since before its independence. Elections since the democratic constitution was approved in 1996 have been marred with difficulties. In 1995, President Idriss Déby unilaterally modified the constitution to remove the two-term limit on the presidency. The most recent elections saw some irregularities with the EU praising the elections as peaceful and a turning point for the country. President Déby was re-elected in April with 83.59% of the vote with a 55.75% participation rate.ⁱ

Chad is ranked 90th on Women in Parliament: World Classification, electing 24 women in 2011, filling 12.4% of the parliamentary seats.ⁱⁱ

While the constitution in Chad provides equal rights for all its citizens, women lack the skills needed to be aware of these rights as basic literacy skills are lacking in Chad and the enrolment rate of women in school is only 27.5% . Poor education and literacy skills have led to an unsustainable democracy. There is also a low level of female participation in voting as often families vote once through the male head of household, or “Family voting”.ⁱⁱⁱ

As it stands today, Chad has not implemented a constitutional quota for legislative positions.^iv

Women’s Political Participation Recent Statistics^v

Political Representation	Number of seats	Number of women as of 2010	Number of women after 2011 elections
Legislative/parliament	188	8 or 4.2%	24 or 13.2%
Government ministers	27	3 or 11%	N/A
Executive and Regional Level Government positions	22	0	N/A
Mayors	262	5 or 2%	N/A

 

• Chad