Niger suspended from regional bloc after controversial election
By DALATOU MAMANE
The Associated Press
NIAMEY, Niger (Oct. 21, 2009) — A regional bloc of African states on Tuesday said it has suspended Niger from the group after the president held controversial parliamentary elections despite boycotts from the opposition.
The voting in the uranium-rich West African desert nation comes just two months after a referendum passed allowing President Mamadou Tandja to extend his rule for years past the constitutional limit.
The opposition protested the referendum, saying it granted Tandja near-totalitarian powers. Tandja claimed he was only pushing to stay in power because his people had demanded it.
The Economic Community of West African States, known as ECOWAS, is a regional group of 15 countries that has played a key role in mediating conflicts in the region.
“ECOWAS will not recognize the outcome of today’s elections in Niger” it said in a statement released Tuesday.
The regional group had called on Tandja to delay the elections to allow talks with the opposition.
In Late May, Tandja had dissolved parliament because it had opposed his referendum.
The group said the election “signifies a rejection of the appeal for dialogue and consensus to resolve the deepening constitutional crisis in the country” and said it would suspend Niger “until constitutional legality is reinstated.”
Tandja’s critics allege he wants to stay on so his family and clan can benefit from the country’s wealth.
Niger’s main opposition group filed a complaint with the national electoral commission in an attempt to call off the Aug. 4 vote on the referendum that allowed him to stay in power.
After three coups hit Niger between 1974 and 1999, Tandja twice won votes deemed fair. But in the waning months of his final term, he had gone down the path of many long-serving African despots, breaking a frequent promise to step down when his term expires Dec. 22.
Tandja has said that the people of Niger want him to remain in office to finish several mammoth new projects worth billions of dollars, including a hydroelectric dam, an oil refinery and what will be the largest uranium mine in Africa.
Tandja’s opponents say he has run roughshod over Niger’s democratic institutions to stay in office.
The United Nations, the White House and the African Union have expressed concern about the country’s political crisis.