Niger: Elections 2004

Niger – elections 2004
Centre for Democracy and Development
http://www.cdd.org.uk/pdf/niger_election.pdf
Reposted with permission

Geography

Niger is West Africa’s largest country, bigger than Nigeria, and with its size of 1,267,000 sq km, roughly the size of Germany, France, and Italy combined. However, its population is a meagre 12.3 million people (2002), most of whom live in the southern part of the country, bordering Nigeria, and in the south-western part of the country along the Niger valley, especially in and around the large cities like Niamey, the capital, and Tillabéri. Other major cities in the south are Dosso, Tahoua, Maradi, Zinder, and Diffa. In the north central part of Niger, by the foot of the mountain area Massif de Aïr, lies the city of Agadez. The area to the west of Agadez towards the border with Algeria and Mali is mainly desert. To the east and south-east of the Massif de Aïr mountain area is a vast desert area that is very scarcely populated, all the way towards the border with Chad. The northeastern corner of Niger is made up of another lower mountain area called Plateau du Djado.

The arable part of the country corresponds with the heaviest populated parts of Niger in the south and southwest where about 95% of the population is living and where there is a prevalence of at least a limited amount of rainfall and ground water. The implication of this is that although the country as a whole has a population density of 10 per sq km, the huge desert areas making up some ¾ of the country means that the population density is more like 40 per sq km in the southern and south-western parts of the country where most people live.

The ethnic composition of people in Niger is as follows: Hausa – 56%, Djerma and Songhai – 22%, Fulani – 8.5%, Tuareg – 8%, Kanouri and others – 5.5%. Around 20% of the population are nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoralists, traditionally including most of Niger’s Fulani and Tuareg groups (8.5% and 8% of the population respectively). Most of the population speaks various Hausa dialects, while French is the official language. The majority of the population are Muslim. The literacy rate is estimated at only around 17% with a slightly higher percentage for men and lower percentage for women, and most children get their basic education from either state schools or Muslim schools.

History

The history of human existence in the area of today’s Niger goes back some 40,000 years and is intimately tied to climactic changes. Conditions in the area were more hospitable in previous historic periods, and life must have been quite different in this part of Africa in the past before the Sahara desert starting expanding southwards. Of more recent history the area’s strategic importance came from its position on the southern fringes of the Sahara, with camel trade routes to north Africa passing through cities like Agadez, Zinder, and Niamey. Together with the start of the utilisation of iron in this region, this led to the establishment of the powerful empire of Kanem from the 9th century AD in the south-eastern corner of today’s Niger. Already from the 7th century, the Songhay Empire along the bend of the River Niger, reached the western part of the present day Niger around Niamey. The arrival of Islam from the 11th century, partly spread from Songhay from the west and by contacts with Hausa converts from the east, changed the social structure of the society. From its maximum outreach in the beginning of the 13th century, civil war and general decay during the 15th century led the Kanem Empire to shrink back to an area around Lake Chad stretching to Bilma in the north and Zinder to the west. At the same time, the Songhay Empire grew, with its maximal expansion – eastwards all the way to Agadez – around 1520, before collapsing around 1591. In the aftermath, together with the emerging empire of Bornu the Kanem empire got a new lease of life as the Kanem-Bornu Empire. During the following centuries the Hausa city-states became the dominant influence from the northern part of Nigeria into the south-central parts of today’s Niger from Zinder in the east to the River Niger in the west. During the beginning of the 18-hundreds the first European adventurers arrived in the area. From 1804 the Hausa city-states had come under attack from the Muslim cleric Usman dan Fodio and his Fulani jihadists. After four years warfare the Hausa states were completely conquered and placed under the administration of dan Fodio and his Sokoto Caliphate. From the beginning of the 1800s France had pushed eastwards, expanding its West African empire all the way towards Niger, and establishing an important army post in Niamey. But it was not until 1890 that the French occupied the entire area, integrating Niger into French West Africa from 1904. From 1921 Niger became a separate colonial entity under France, but it was not until 1959 when uranium was discovered in Niger that France really started taking an interest in the country. By that time the country had however already seen the emergence of an independence movement for a couple of decades and in 1960 the country gained its independence from France under the French-designed process which began with the loi cadre of 1958. With the conservative Hamani Diori as its first president, Niger was guaranteed close ties to France – an arrangement which assured supplies of uranium for France’s independent nuclear ambitions, and on the other hand certain levels of aid cooperation for the desperately poor new nation.

Issues

Several themes run through the post-independence history of Niger. Some of the most prominent follow:

Coups and fragile democracy

During virtually its whole independent existence, Niger has see-sawed between fragile democratic governments, whose stability has depended on their varying ability to incorporate representatives of the country’s ethnic patchworks, and military dictatorships of varying shades of authoritarianism. Independence President Diori was overthrown in 1974 by Lt-Col Seyni Kountche, an army officer radicalised by contact with the rural poor during the drought years of 1968-1973, when the army was engaged in distributing food aid. Opinion on Kountche’s legacy is mixed, with some praising his development-oriented managerial style, and others pointing to the regime’s various repressive manifestations. Kountche died in 1987 and was succeeded by Chief of Staff Ali Seybou, who civilianised himself into a one-party president two years later. In 1990, as in much of the rest of West Africa, popular demonstrations forced the government to concede to multipartyism, and in July of the following year a National Conference set up a transitional government under Andre Salifou. In 1993 Mahamane Ousmane was elected to head the country, but this was far from the end of instability and military involvement in politics. Colonel Ibrahim Mainassara, a figure more typical of West Africa’s opportunistic military figures of the mid-1990s, took power in January 1996, and immediately froze all political parties – rescinding the ban only in May, two months before he orchestrated his own election as a civilian president. But Mainassara was assassinated by his own guards in 1999, with Major Dauda Wanke assuming a caretaker Presidency from April to October of that year, when current incumbent Mamadou Tandja was elected. Civil-military relations remains fragile, however: An August 2002 army mutiny in the south-eastern town of Diffa was apparently motivated by discontent over pay, and around 200 mutineers were arrested, many of whom remain in custody.

Rebellion in the Tuareg north

Niger’s far north, largely populated by Tuareg nomads, has always been marginal to the centres of power. Yet tensions built with the exploitation of uranium in the area, as local populations felt they were funding the Nigerien state yet seeing little of the benefit. In 1990, roughly coincident with a similar rebellion in neighbouring Mali, a war began in the desert north. Mahamane Ousmane’s government signed a ceasefire with Tuareg rebels in 1995 which saw rebel forces integrated into the national army and prominent Tuaregs given positions in government. There then followed a decade of peace, although the reach of the state and the rule of law ha always had a tenuous presence in the Saharan borderlands. But that changed in February 2004, when Rhissa Ag Boula, a former radical rebel and the most prominent Tuareg in Niger’s government, was sacked from his job as Tourism Minister and then arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder of ruling party cadre Adam Amangue in January of that year. Former fighters loyal to Ag Boula reacted by deserting from the security forces and several acts of banditry, including attacks on trans-Saharan traffic, have since been attributed to that group of veterans of the Air and Azouad Liberation Front.

Constrained Freedoms and Manipulated Democracy

Niger has never had what could be termed a totalitarian or overwhelmingly repressive government. Yet at the same time none of the military or civilian administrations could be said to have satisfactorily guaranteed civic rights and freedoms. Tandja’s rule has been no exception, with Niger a frequent visitor to the lists of countries where the press (comparatively large and vibrant considering the low levels of incomes and literacy) is intermittently interfered with by government. A typical episode was the six-month prison sentence given to Mamane Abou, editor of the opposition PNDS-leaning Le Republicain in November 2003, for his role in publishing information on multi-million-dollar irregular payments by the country’s treasury. Sharp practices were also in evidence during the current election campaign, with opposition parties complaining that the government had the lion’s share of state media coverage – the ruling MNSD received around four times as much television airtime. And the party was also accused of taking advantage of its incumbent position by enlisting local and traditional authorities to help with its campaign.

Slavery

One of the darker sides of life in Niger is the prevalence of domestic slavery. Despite the fact that slavery recently was outlawed, the practice continues. Brutal treatment of slaves is commonplace with some stories describing abuse of the worst kind experienced during the transatlantic slave trade period. There are also reports suggesting that despite physical violence, sexual abuse, and hard work, some slaves actually see no alternative to their life in bondage. With at least some food and a place to sleep, quite a few would find life as unemployed in a poverty stricken country like Niger a more challenging existence than slavery.

November 2004 Elections

As in neighbouring Mali, Presidential elections in Niger follow a French-style two-round system. The first round was originally scheduled for 13 November, but was delayed for three days as the first date coincided with the Eid celebrations marking the end of Ramadan. The second round is fixed for 4 December. Six candidates successfully registered for the first round. They were:

· Tandja Mamadou: The incumbent President, a Kanouri from the east of the country, is the first to have served a full five-year term, at the head of his National Movement for the Development Society (MNSD). He gained 40.6% of first round votes.
· Mahamadou Issoufou of the Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS) came second to Tandja in 1999. He came second with 24.6% of first round votes.
· Mahamane Ousmane, candidate for the Democratic and Social Convention (CDS-Rahama), has already been president once (1993 to 1996), and is currently speaker of parliament. 17% of first-round votes.
· Moumouni Adamou Djermakoye of the Nigerien Alliance for Democracy and Progress (ANPD) 6.07%
· Cheiffou Amadou of the Rally for Social Democracy (RSD-Gaskiya) 6.35%
· Hamid Algabid of the Rally for Democracy and Progress (4.89%)

Mamadou thus headed for the second round with a comfortable lead, helped by the declaration of all remaining parties that they would back him, and not the challenger Issoufou, in the 4 December run-off.

This briefing was written by Olly Owen ([email protected]) and Morten Hagen ([email protected])