From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lol Mohamed Shawa (born 1939) (also Lol Mahamat Choua) is a Chadian politician who served as his country's Head of State for four months in 1979. He is the President of the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) political party.

An adherent of Islam and a member of the Kanembu ethnic group, Shawa came into power during the Chadian Civil War. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Chad (MPLT), a Kanembu rebel group backed by Nigeria, along with the central government, the Armed Forces of the North (FAN) and the People's Armed Forces (FAP) were the main combatants. When a peace conference was organized in Kano, Nigeria, the MPLT, which suffered from a lack of members, chose Lol to head its delegation to meeting.

Under Nigerian pressure, Lol was made head of the Transitional Government of National Unity on April 29, 1979, by the four factions present at Kano I. The GUNT included 21 ministers, of whom 11 were northerners and 10 were southerners. Goukouni Oueddei, head of the FAP, became Interior Minister, Hissène Habré became Defence Minister, and Wadel Abdelkader Kamougué, leader of the Chadian Armed Forces (FAT), became vice-president. But the transitional government excluded all the pro-Libyan forces; as a result, a rival government, backed by Muammar al-Gaddafi, was formed; it was called the Democratic Revolutionary Council, and it was headed by Arab Ahmat Acyl.

The problem of the rival government, and the transitional government's resistance to Nigerian influence, led to two new peace conferences, this time in Lagos, Nigeria. On August 21, an agreement between all factions, those of the CDR included, was signed; it became known as the Lagos Accord. The accord brought to the replacement of Shawa with Goukouni as head of the transitional government, an act that was accomplished on September 3.

Lol served as minister in his Habré's government, starting in 1982. Idriss Déby overthrew Habré in 1990, and when he legalized opposition parties in 1992, one of them was Lol's Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), based mainly in Kanem Region. Between January 15 and April 7, 1992 a conference was held that ended the civil war; among the decisions of the conference was to form a transitional legislative body, the Higher Transitional Council (Conseil supérieur de la transition, or CST), composed of 57 members, which had Shawa as its president.

In June 1996, the first multiparty presidential election in Chad's history were held. Shawa placed fifth, taking 5.93% of the vote, while Déby won in the second round, held in July.^[1] He was elected to the National Assembly as an RDP candidate in the first round of the 1997 parliamentary election.^[2] In the 2001 presidential election, the RDP supported Déby, and the party obtained 12 seats (out of 155) in the National Assembly of Chad in return. However, in 2005, during the constitutional referendum on the elimination of presidential term limits, Lol and his party boycotted the vote.

Shawa is the President of the RDP Parliamentary Group in the National Assembly.^[3]

• Terry M. Mays (2002). Africa's First Peacekeeping operation: The OAU in Chad. Greenwood. ISBN 0-275-97606-8. 
• Sam C. Nolutshungu (1995). Limits of Anarchy: Intervention and State Formation in Chad. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0-8139-1628-3. 

v • d • e Heads of state of Chad
Tombalbaye • Odingar*† • Malloum • Oueddei • Shawa • Oueddei • Habré • Bawoyeu* • Déby *interim     †military