Background
BABA HASSANE Mahamat Saleh was born on January 25, 1933, at Bongor, close to the border with Cameroon
BABA HASSANE Mahamat Saleh was born on January 25, 1933, at Bongor, close to the border with Cameroon
He was trained as an accountant.
He was only 24 when he first became a minister and was promoted fast. But a major career crisis came with the riots at Fort Lamy in 1963 when he was arrested on questionable evidence. Still only 30, he appeared to have fallen out with President Tombalbaye, but after several years as an ambassador abroad, he was rehabilitated and is now considered a possible successor to the President.
In 1957 he became Minister of Social Affairs. In June 1959 he was appointed Minister of Stock-breeding and Animal Products and in March, when the secretary- general of the Chad Progressive Party, Francois Tombalbaye, was finally designated to form Chad’s fourth new government in four months, he became Secretary of State at the Presidency. In the elections of May 31, 1959, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly and to the National Political Bureau of the PPT.
From August to November 1960, he was Minister of Economy and Trade, then Minister-Resident at Logone until August 1962 when he was appointed High Commissioner-General for Planning.
Following the March 1963 riots in Fort Lamy he was arrested, tried and sentenced, though his sentence was suspended in January 1965. Sent back to the Planning Commission for little more than two years, he was appointed Ambassador to Nigeria in March 1967. Four years later, in March 1971, he returned to get back into national politics. The PPT Congress held in March 1971 was a personal triumph. He was fully rehabilitated, elected once more to the National Political Bureau and to a vice-chairmanship of the PPT Administrative Commission.
A tolerant Muslim, but a ruthless politician in an important ministry