Yamassoum. On April 1, 2001, Kebzabo was again nominated as the UNDR's presidential candidate for that year's election. He was subsequently removed from his position as Minister of State for Agriculture on April 8; the other UNDR members of the government were also dismissed. Prior to this he was considered the second ranking member of the government, after the prime minister. It was speculated that Kebzabo chose to run for President on this occasion because he had been unsuccessful in negotiating with Déby for the post of Prime Minister. Kebzabo later said that he had participated in the government in the belief that by doing so he could undermine Déby from within the system, and that as a result he believed the UNDR was a "permanent target" of Déby. In the presidential election, held on May 20, 2001, he placed third with 7% of the vote. In late May he was twice detained briefly by police, along with five other opposition candidates. In the April 2002 parliamentary election, Kebzabo was elected to the National Assembly as a UNDP candidate from Léré constituency in Mayo-Dallah Department, and he became President of the Democratic Parliamentary Group during the parliamentary term that followed the election. According to Kebzabo, on February 3, 2008, during a battle between government forces and rebels in N'Djamena, soldiers came to Kebzabo's home to arrest him, but he was travelling at the time. He said that the soldiers fired at his brother. In a statement on February 26, he and another opposition leader, Wadel Abdelkader Kamougué, released a statement calling for "the immediate convening of an all-inclusive national dialogue", the release of the three opposition leaders who had been arrested, along with an international inquiry into the arrests, and an immediate cease-fire. Although the UNDR is a member of the Coordination of Political Parties for the Defense of the Constitution (CPDC), and the CPDC chose to join the government of Prime Minister Youssouf Saleh Abbas in April 2008, Kebzabo declined to take a post in the government, saying that he preferred that someone else from his party enter the government instead. Kebzabo said that his party work in the UNDR was absorbing him at the time; he described this work as "an enriching experience" and said that he was already beginning preparations for the planned 2009 parliamentary election. In June 2017, members of the FONAC opposition coalition argued that