Tanja, Issoufou head for run-off elections

Niger’s two leading presidential candidates, Mamadou Tanja and Mohammadou Issoufou, will clash again in a run-off poll due on 24 November, news organisations reported, quoting the state electoral commission. Tanja of the Mouvement national de la societe de developpement (MNSD) won 32.30 percent of the 1.9 million valid votes cast, falling short of the 51 percent needed for an outright victory at the first round of the presidential elections, held on Sunday. His nearest rival, former prime minister Mohamadou Issoufou of the Parti nigerien pour la democratie et le socialisme (PNDS), won 22.78 percent of the ballot, the Commission electorale nationale independante (CENI) announced on Wednesday. Local news analysts told IRIN on Wednesday both men would likely seek the support of the third place candidate, former president Mahamane Ousmane of the Convention democratique et sociale (CDS) in the second round. The winner needs only a simple majority to become president. International monitors described the voting as calm. Voter secrecy and transparency of the voting process were “generally observed”, the spokesman for the observers, Mamadou Diawara, said in a communique. “No acts of fraud or intimidation were reported,” state-owned Voix du Sahel radio quoted Diawara, Guinea’s ambassador to Niger, as saying. The only shortcomings reported by the observers were the late opening of some polling stations, an excessively long voter-identification process, difficulties in distributing voters cards, poor lighting in most polling stations and, in “very few” cases, an absence of vehicles to transport polling material.