Niger’s electoral commission on Tuesday declared the governing party candidate, Mohamed Bazoum, as the winner of the presidential election runoff that was held on February 21, reported Africa News.
Issaka Souna, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), announced that Bazoum got 55.75 percent of the votes beating former President Mahamane Ousmane who garnered 44.25 percent of the votes.
Souna said the results are provisional and will be submitted to the analysis of the Constitutional Court.
According to Niger’s electoral commission, the voter turnout was pegged at 62.91%. Bazoum got around 2,501,459 votes against Ousmane who got 1,985,736 votes.
In the first round of polls, held on December 27, Bazoum, a former interior minister and Outgoing President Mahamadou Issoufou’s right-hand man, had secured just more than 39 percent of the vote. Ousmane came second, at just below 17 percent.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ousmane’s campaign alleged widespread fraud in the recently held runoff election, including the theft and stuffing of ballot boxes and threats against voters.
“We demand the immediate suspension of the publication of these results, which do not in any way take into account the expression of the Nigerien people for change,” the campaign team alleged in a statement.
The opposition demanded the immediate suspension of the publication of election results.
Falké Bacharou, Ousmane’s Campaign manager, urged all the Nigeriens to mobilize as one to defeat the electoral hold-up.
Ousmane became Niger’s first democratically elected president in 1993. He was toppled in a coup three years later. This year’s election was his fifth attempt at winning the presidential election since his overthrow.
The 69-year-old outgoing president, Issoufou, is voluntarily stepping down after serving the two terms allowed by the constitution of a country that’s been rocked by political unrest, including four coups since it won independence from France in 1960.
