Mohamed Bazoum who is a former interior minister has won Niger’s presidential elections, according to provisional results issued on Tuesday, as the opposition cries of foul have sparked clashes in many parts of the country.
The ruling party’s candidate Bazoum, picked up 55.75 percent of Sunday’s runoff vote while Mahamane Ousmane garnered 44.25 percent, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) declared on Tuesday.
However, CENI chairman Issaka Sauna said in an announcement attended by senior officials and members of the diplomatic corps that; ‘(These) results are provisional and must be put to the Constitutional Court for its assessment,’
He put the turnout at 62.91 percent.
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The elections have been showcased as the first democratic transition in the history of the coup-prone Sahel state, which is also battling extreme poverty and two bloody jihadist insurgencies.
But shortly before the results were announced, Ousmane’s campaign blasted the runoff as an “electoral holdup” and urged the public to ‘mobilize‘ against it.
‘The results that are being published are in many cases not in line with the expression of the people’s will,’ said campaign manager Falke Bacharou.
‘(Outgoing President Mahamadou) Issoufou and his side persist in defying the sovereign people of Niger,’ Bacharou said as excited supporters shouted ‘changji,’ or ‘change’ in Hausa.
Opposition followers armed with sticks gathered near the headquarters of the ruling Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS) in Niamey, and set fire to tyres as police fired teargas, an AFP photographer saw.
A local journalist in the southern city Zinder, the second largest in the country, said that protests also broke out there.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK