Chad's junta chief, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, who won this week's presidential election in the first round, has given his first speech as a democratically elected president.
"I am now the elected president of all Chadians…the victory is resounding and without blemish," Deby said in a brief televised address, promising to make good on his "commitments."
The provisional official results were released on Thursday, extending his family's decades-long position in power.
Monday's vote aimed to end three years of military rule in a country crucial to the fight against militancy across Africa's Sahel desert region.
Celebratory gunfire
The ANGE electoral commission said Deby won 61.03 percent of votes, beating Prime Minister Succes Masra, who garnered only 18.53 percent, in results due to be confirmed by the Constitutional Council.
Soldiers in the N'Djamena neighbourhood where Masra's party is based fired their guns in the air after the results were announced, both in celebration of Deby's win and to deter protesters from gathering, AFP reported.
Near the presidential palace in central N'Djamena, Deby's supporters shouted, sang, sounded car horns, and fired their own guns in the air in celebration, AFP reporters saw.
Parallel count
Supporters of Masra, a 40-year-old economist, had been holding their own ballot count in parallel to the official one, and in a speech posted on his Facebook page hours before the results were released, Masra said his team's count "establishes the victory in the first round, that of change over the status quo".
Masra went on to say the team of Deby, who was proclaimed transitional president three years ago by the army, would soon announce that he had won and "steal the victory from the people."
Masra, a former opposition leader appointed prime minister in January, urged Chadians to "mobilise peacefully to prove our victory."
Thursday's announcement was a surprise, coming nearly two weeks earlier than the scheduled release date of May 21.
Deby and Masra faced eight other candidates who were relatively unknown.
Chad has remained a firm ally of traditional security partner France, whose forces in recent years have been ousted by military regimes in former African colonies including Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.
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