Niger

A

Independence

The first Europeans to enter the area were the Scottish surgeon and explorer Mungo Park and the German explorers Heinrich Barth and Eduard Vogel. The French settled the area about 1890. It was made a military territory in 1900, an autonomous territory in 1922, and an overseas territory in 1946. Proclaimed an autonomous republic of the French Community in 1958, Niger became fully independent on August 3, 1960.

In 1960 Hamani Diori was elected to the presidency by the legislature. In 1964 the government crushed a rebellion aimed against the Diori regime, and in April 1965 the president survived an assassination attempt. He was re-elected in 1965 and 1970. Niger was one of six sub-Saharan nations affected by a five-year drought, which was broken by summer rains in 1973. Accused of corruption and of mishandling the famine, Diori was overthrown in a military coup d’état in April 1974. After the coup, Niger was ruled by a Supreme Military Council, headed by Lieutenant Colonel Seyni Kountché. His first priority was economic recovery after the drought, and to that effect a new agreement with France was concluded in 1977.

Plots and coup attempts occurred during Kountché’s first years in power, but by 1980 he was confident enough to release former president Diori from detention. Most Cabinet posts in the government were gradually filled by civilians, but a drop in uranium prices left Niger’s economy in a severely weakened condition. In November 1987 Kountché died and was succeeded in the presidency by Ali Seybou, the army chief of staff. Seybou was re-elected president in 1989 after introducing a new constitution that returned Niger to civilian rule under a single-party system. A wave of strikes and demonstrations in 1990 led him to legalize opposition parties. A constitutional conference, convened in July 1991, stripped him of his powers and established a transitional government, headed by André Salifou.

B

Political Unrest

In 1992 a new constitution was approved by referendum. General elections in February 1993 resulted in an absolute victory for the Alliance of the Forces of Change (AFC), a coalition of eight parties. In presidential elections the following month Mahamane Ousmane, leader of one of the AFC parties, was elected president. The first 21 months of the new government were turbulent. The first AFC prime minister resigned in September 1994 after his party left the coalition, and his replacement (chosen by Ousmane) was unable to command a parliamentary majority and new elections were called for January 1995. The National Movement for a Developing Society (MNSD—formerly the sole legal party), was the largest single party, with 29 seats, but had to enter a coalition with several other opposition parties to form a government.

The January 1996 coup superseded parliamentary elections scheduled for September of that year. Immediately following the coup, in which the Ousmane government was overthrown by Colonel Ibrahim Baré Mainassara, a non-military Cabinet was appointed with Boukary Adji, an economist, as prime minister. The new government and the ousted president agreed on a period of transition, replacing the National Assembly and unions temporarily with a “committee of sages”.

In April 1997 a new constitution was adopted, placing all executive power with an elected president; this was overwhelmingly supported by a national referendum held on May 12. In presidential elections held in July Mainassara gained 52 per cent of the vote, amid accusations by the newly revived opposition parties of electoral fraud. Although the parties decided not to take part in legislative elections scheduled for November, political rallies and access to the media were permitted. President Mainassara dismissed the government in November and ignoring opposition calls for a general election appointed Ibrahim Assane Mayarki as prime minister.

Mainassara was assassinated in an apparent coup by the presidential guard in April 1999. The National Reconciliation Council, a 14-member body of military officers set up immediately after the assassination, announced that Major Daouda Malam Wanké, the apparent coup leader and head of the presidential guard, had become Niger's new head of state.

C

New Constitution

In an effort to democratize the country, a new constitution was proposed to the electorate in a referendum held in July 1999. More than 89 per cent of the voters approved the draft, which was then ratified in August. The constitution sought to establish a new, more equal balance of power between the president, the prime minister, and the legislature. In October and November presidential elections were held to replace the military junta of Major Wanké. Mamadou Tandja of the MNSD party won with 59.9 per cent of the vote; his rival, Mahamadou Issoufou of the PNDS received 40.1 per cent of the vote. The elections were crucial to restoring foreign aid to Niger. In December Major Wanké relinquished power to President Tandja, who, in January 2000, appointed Hama Amadou as prime minister.

In early 2001 the government survived a motion of no-confidence after student protests for improved conditions turned into violent clashes with police in which one official was killed and nearly 50 people were injured. The government closed Niger’s university and imprisoned several students, which provoked further demonstrations and calls by the opposition for the resignation of Prime Minister Amadou. There were widespread mutinies by soldiers in the east of the country and in the capital over a failure to pay the troops; they were swiftly put down by the army.

President Tandja won the first round of the presidential election in November 2004, but the narrow margin of victory meant that the election had to go to a run-off the following month. In the run-off Tandja secured more than 65 per cent of the vote. His political party, the MNSD, secured victory in the legislative elections held at the same time, capturing 47 seats. Seyni Oumarou was appointed the new prime minister in June 2007.