Social issues take centre stage ahead of presidential poll

Education, jobs and other social issues dominated campaigning for Tuesday’s presidential election in Niger, with little attention paid to the insecurity that had dogged parts of the country in the past and resurfaced this year. One of the few contenders to broach the issue of insecurity was the incumbent, President Mamadou Tandja, who promised as he launched his campaign on 23 October to tighten up surveillance along the western border, where cattle herders sometimes clashed with rustlers. Throughout the election campaign, which ended on Friday, hardly a word was said about violence in the north, where passenger buses were attacked in mid-year while five people died in early October in fighting between a group of armed men and government troops. The government called the group bandits but its leader denied this in an interview last month with RFI. Mohamed Ag Boula said he headed a 200-strong insurgent force of Tuareg, Toubou and Semori nomads. Mohamed is the brother of Rhissa Ag Boula, an ex-rebel chief became a government minister following a 1995 peace agreement, which also saw other Tuareg incorporated into the military, police, gendarmerie, customs and civil service. Rhissa was arrested in February in connection with the murder of a ruling-party politician and is awaiting trial. A recent history of insecurity in the north Niger, like neighbours Chad and Mali, borders on the southern rim of the Sahara desert. All three countries have had to contend with rebellions in their northern regions in the 1990s. “The issue of insecurity in northern Niger is still a challenge, but one whose severity has diminished somewhat over the years, a political analyst in Niamey told IRIN. “However,’” he said, “the situation is still precarious; it’s still fragile so an explosion is always possible.” Northern populations feel a sense of frustration vis-à-vis the state, he told IRIN. “This frustration stems from their political, economic and social marginalization […]. They complain there isn’t much investment in development, in infrastructure, whereas it is in their area that uranium is produced.” Uranium, one of Niger’s two main exports – the other is cotton – is mined in the arid north. There have been donor-financed development projects in the region, the analyst added, but the resentment has continued, along with mistrust towards the state. Much will need to be done to win the confidence of the northern population, he said. However, the north and the issue of stability took a back seat in campaigns for the presidential election, which should have been held on 13 November, but was postponed to accommodate the Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Fitr. Politicians focused more on issues, such as improving people’s wellbeing, employment and bettering health care. Joblessness, poverty and underdevelopment There was no shortage of promises to reduce joblessness in a country where recruitments to the public service have been frozen for more than seven years and many university graduates are jobless. At the same time, candidates courted older voters by promising to hike the mandatory retirement age from 55 years to 60 or 65. Raising living standards in the world’s second poorest country is one of the challenges facing the winner of Tuesday’s poll. About 60 percent of Nigeriens live on one US dollar a day, or less, according to the 2004 edition of the UNDP’s Human Development Report. Only one in five enjoys proper sanitation, and about 41 percent have no access to clean drinking water. Niger’s next president will also need to focus on education: the percentage of children in primary school increased over the past decade from 24 to 34, but is still one of the lowest rates in Africa. Analysts say the frequent strikes by students calling for better conditions in schools and by teachers complaining about poor salaries and living standards are the obvious signs of an education crisis that the incoming government would need to focus on. It is also likely to face other demands by public servants, they say, including the payment of salary arrears dating back six months. A peaceful election campaign Politicians welcomed the fact that Niger’s third multiparty election since independence from France in 1960 – the first and second were held in 1993 and 1999 – was peaceful and relatively free of insults and mudslinging. “In one decade of multiparty practice, you could say that the people of Niger have gained in maturity given the good conduct of this campaign,” Moussa Oumarou of the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) said. His party was once headed by the late Ibrahim Bare Mainassara, killed in 1999 in what most observers said was a military coup. Its representative in Tuesday’s race is its president, Hamid Algabid. Incumbent president Tandja of the National Movement for Society and Development (MNSD – French acronym) is widely expected to be reelected. The man tipped to be his main opponent is Mahamadou Issoufou, whose Niger Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS) is the largest opposition group in parliament. Other hopefuls include the speaker of the National Assembly, Mahamane Ousmane [Social Democratic Convention – CSD], who became president in 1993 after beating Tandja, but was deposed by Mainassara in a military coup three years later. The remaining candidates are retired colonel and ex-minister Moumouni Djermakoye and Ahmadou Cheiffou, a former prime minister.