Niger - 2011 Election
In 2011 citizens elected Issoufou Mahamadou to a five-year presidential term with 58 percent of the vote. International observers described the election as generally free and fair. The Issoufou regime allied itself with former rivals and co-opted prominent opposition politicians as well as leaders of civil society organizations formerly known for their commitment to democracy, human rights, decentralization, and freedom of the press.
The January 2011 elections were the first to be held since a February 2010 military coup, ousted the then President Mamadou Tandja. They were held in parallel with the presidential polls. The previous elections held in October 2009 followed months of political turmoil over a proposal to remove the two-term presidential limit from the constitution. President Tandja had been serving his second five-year term, which was due to end in December 2009. On 18 February 2010, soldiers calling themselves the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSDR) staged a coup and detained President Tandja. He was charged with corruption and placed under house arrest. CSDR leader Salou Djibo promised to fight corruption and turn the nation into "an example of democracy and good governance". The CSDR suspended the Constitution and dissolved all State institutions, including the National Assembly. It later announced that it would assume legislative and executive powers until new democratic institutions were established.
On 29 July, the police arrested former Speaker Oumarou. On 2 August, he and three other former senior officials were charged with embezzling public funds and subsequently released on bail. In September, the CSDR established a commission to investigate economic and financial crimes committed during Mr. Tandja's rule. The commission's report implicated Mr. Tandja and over 2,000 other people in alleged fraud.
In November, the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) declared Mr. Tandja's arrest and detention arbitrary, and ordered his immediate release. The CFDR coalition and its allies rejected the ruling and demanded that Mr. Tandja be charged with high treason. In December, the CSDR lifted Mr. Tandja's presidential immunity. He was subsequently charged with misappropriation of State funds amounting to nearly US $125 million. On 16 January 2011, Mr. Tandja, who had been under house arrest, was transferred to a prison near Niamey. On the same day, official campaigning for the parliamentary and presidential elections started.
A number of lists for the parliamentary elections were rejected due to organizational problems and new candidate requirements. At least 75 per cent of candidates on each list now have to be in possession of a high school certificate. In the end, the CCT approved only 74 of the 141 lists submitted for the parliamentary elections. 10 candidates were contesting the presidential elections. Several parties called in vain for the polls to be postponed. On 24 January, the CSDR convened a meeting of the major political parties and subsequently announced that both elections would take place as scheduled.
The major presidential candidates included former prime minister Issoufou (PNDS), former Speaker Oumarou (MNSD), former prime minister Amadou and former president Ousmane (CDS). Mr. Issoufou had contested all presidential elections under Mr. Tandja's rule. Mr. Amadou, a former member of the MNSD, had been sentenced to prison for corruption in 2008 but was released in April 2009 on health grounds. He was living in self-imposed exile in France but returned to Niger in 2010 to form the Niger Democratic Movement for an African Federation (MDN, known as "Moden Fa Lumana"). Mr. Ousmane had also left the country in 2009 and returned after the 2010 coup. The 2011 elections saw the country's first female presidential candidate, Ms. Bayard Mariama Gamatié, who ran as an independent. The CSDR did not field any candidates but urged voters to turn out en masse for "a new start for Niger".
Issoufou's PNDS conducted its election campaign under the slogan "With time comes hope". The MDN promised to introduce genetically modified food to meet the needs of a population on the verge of starvation. It also promised to contract Indian pharmaceutical companies to provide generic medicines.
Shortly before polling day, on 25 January, six presidential candidates, including Mr. Oumarou (MNSD), Mr. Amadou (MDN) and Mr. Ousmane (CDS), announced that they would unite under the banner of the National Reconciliation Alliance. The Alliance members agreed to cooperate in the second round of the presidential elections. The pact was widely believed to be intended to deny Mr. Issoufou victory.
On 31 January, 49.22 per cent of the 6.7 million registered voters turned out at the polls. Polling took place without any major incident. The EU and the ECOWAS monitored the polls. The EU stated that the elections had been "transparent and generally well conducted", a view shared by the ECOWAS.
A coalition, composed primarily of parties that had been in opposition under the Tandja regime, including the Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS), Movement for Democracy in Niger, Social Democratic Rally, Rally for Democracy and Progress, Nigerien Alliance for Democracy and Progress, and Union for Democracy and the Republic, backed Issoufou and won 83 of 113 National Assembly seats in the 2011 legislative elections. The pro-Tandja National Movement for a Development Society won 26 seats, and the Social Democratic Convention and the Union of Independent Nigeriens obtained three seats and one seat, respectively. Issoufou appointed PNDS party member Brigi Rafini as prime minister.
Regime change was not accompanied by major changes in the composition of the political class and their behavior. The four candidates -- Mahamadou Issoufou, Hama Amadou, Oumarou Seyni, and Mahamane Ousmane - who gained the most votes in the 2011 presidential elections have been prominent national political leaders since the 1990s. Tandja, the deposed former president whose political roots go back to the 1970s was trying to make a political comeback in 2014 by positioning himself as a critic of government corruption. Little effort had been made by the major political parties to renew their leaders.
The decision of Hama Amadou, former Prime Minister and President of the National Assembly, to leave the government coalition in August 2013 set the ground for a new political crisis because it left the government without a majority in the National Assembly. By 2014 political divisions were the product of the dissolution of Isoufou’s alliance with the President of the National Assembly and rival candidate for the Presidency in the 2016 elections, Hama Amadou. Isoufou’s effort to oust him from his position has, since August 2014, at least temporarily been lessened with Amadou’s flight to France to avoid arrest on charges of participating in a baby trafficking scandal. Amadou has claimed that this is simply a politically motivated maneuver such as has occurred before when former President Tandja imprisoned him on corruption charges.
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