Chad’s junta chief Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno won this week’s presidential election in the first round, according to provisional official results released Thursday, extending his family’s decades-long grip on power.

Monday’s vote aimed to end three years of military rule in a country crucial to the fight against jihadism across Africa’s Sahel desert region.

The ANGE electoral commission said Deby won 61.03 per cent of votes, beating Prime Minister Succes Masra, who garnered only 18.53 per cent, in results due to be confirmed by the Constitutional Council.