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Niger holds 2nd round of presidential election

Sunday, 21 February 2021 11:06 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 21 February 2021 12:50 PM ]

A voter holds a ballot paper with images of the two candidates, Mohamed Bazoum (L) and Mahamane Ousmane at a polling station in Niamey on February 21, 2021 during Niger's second round of the presidential election. (Photo by AFP)

People have taken to polling stations in Niger to vote in a presidential run-off between two political heavyweights in the West African country.

On Sunday, the ruling party candidate Mohamed Bazoum, President of the Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism, is competing against former President Mahamane Ousmane, President of the Democratic and Republican Renewal Party, in the first democratic transition of power since the nation gained independence from foreigner powers in 1960.

Only 7.4 million of the country's 22 million population are eligible to take part in the vote -- the rest of the nation are too young.

Outgoing President Mahamadou Issoufou's decision to voluntarily step down after two five-year terms was welcomed by many in the country.

The favorite candidate in the run-off is 60-year-old Bazoum, who was Issoufou's right-hand man and anointed successor.

He won 39.3 percent of the first round of vote on December 27.

Ousmane, the 71-year-old challenger took nearly 17 percent in the first round. Ousmane, who became the country's first democratically- elected president in 1993 before he was toppled in a 1996 coup, is running for president for the fifth time since his ouster.

Niamey-based political analyst Elhadj Idi Abou said turnout was expected to be high given the nearly 70 percent participation in the first round. The choice was between continuity with Bazoum, or change with Ousmane, he noted.

Both men are considered stalwarts of Niger's political scene which is both intertwined and plagued with domestic militancy complicated by foreign intervention.

In this regard, France remains a strong influence in Niger.

France's Macron rules out immediate reduction in troop numbers in Sahel

French President Emmanuel Macron rules out any immediate decrease in the number of French troops deployed to the Sahel region in West Africa.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that French troops deployed to the Sahel, a semi-arid stretch of land south of the Sahara desert connected to West Africa, will not be leaving any time soon.

Although French rule in Africa formally ended in 1962, the network and links that Paris has created among the elite continue to shape the country's political scene.

Experts say the current relations between France and its former colonial territories throughout the continent have taken the shape of a new form of colonialism.

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