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Niger leader rewrites rules to keep power
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Monday November 2nd 2009
Le Monde's Philippe Bernard examines why Niger's president, Mamadou Tandja, has rewritten the rules to give himself power for as long as he wishes
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Monday November 2nd 2009
Nicolas Sarkozy and Mamadou Tandja. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
The cause of democracy in Africa could have done without this latest affront. Barely six months after giving the French president an undertaking that he would leave power at the end of his second term, Niger’s president, Mamadou Tandja, has rewritten the rules to give himself power for as long as he wishes.
A general election was held on 20 October to renew 113 seats in parliament, which Tandja dissolved in May to overcome its opposition to his plans to change the constitution. He organised a referendum on 4 August to obtain popular approval for new rules, doing away with the two-term limit on presidential office. Tandja, who has been in power for 10 years, thus avoided the need for another presidential election – scheduled for the end of this year – and can in theory remain in power for as long as he likes. Meanwhile he has had large numbers of political opponents arrested.
With an opposition boycott, the turnout for last Tuesday’s poll seems to have been poor, but the vote maintains an illusion of popular support. The president says he is still in power because of the people’s wish to see him “complete the [country’s] development projects”.
After Madagascar, Mauritania and Guinea, Niger joins the depressing list of military or “constitutional” coups French-speaking Africa has endured this year, not to mention disputed elections in Congo and Gabon. The people of Ivory Coast have been waiting five years for long-delayed elections.
Niger is vital to French interests, because of its strategic importance for nuclear power. “At every stage of his constitutional putsch, Mamadou Tandja has sought to implicate France,” says Marou Amadou, the head of the United Front for the Protection of Democracy (Fusad), currently facing charges of “incitement to disobedience”.
After pretending to support democracy for Nicolas Sarkozy’s benefit in March, Tandja changed his tune at the official launch of the massive Imouraren uranium mining project, which has been contracted to Areva, the French nuclear conglomerate. He announced plans for a referendum on the new constitution at the ceremony, attended by the French secretary of state for cooperation, Alain Joyandet, and Areva’s CEO, Anne Lauvergeon. Paris says its mining interests have no bearing on the president’s behaviour “given that the contract has already been signed”.
But a senior diplomat acknowledges that “it is impossible to sever our links with Tandja”. His political opponents are not convinced of France’s neutrality. “We cannot allow France to turn a blind eye to this denial of our democracy, in exchange for the right to exploit our uranium,” says Amadou. “How can Paris imagine a dictator will secure long-term stability?” But China, faced with a choice between human rights and its economic interests, chose the latter and signed a major oil contract with Niger. It is already mining uranium there.
Only limited pressure has been exerted on Tandja to change his mind, to no effect. In July Sarkozy condemned the “perversion” of the constitution. On 20 October the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) suspended Niger “until constitutional legality is restored in the country”.
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