Niger opposition leader Mahamane Ousmane on Wednesday rejected the runoff presidential election results and claimed that he narrowly won the election, reported Al Jazeera.
“The compilation of results … which we have in our possession through our representatives in the various polling stations give us victory with 50.3 percent of the vote,” Ousmane said on Wednesday.
Niger’s Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) on Tuesday declared Mohamed Bazoum, the governing party candidate who is a former interior minister and outgoing President Mahamadou Issoufou’s right-hand man, as the winner of the presidential election runoff that was held on February 21.
As per the results, Niger’s former interior minister Bazoum got 55.75 percent of the vote in Sunday’s runoff beating former President Mahamane Ousmane who garnered 44.25 percent of the votes. The voter turnout was recorded at 62.91%. Bazoum got around 2,501,459 votes, while Ousmane secured 1,985,736 votes.
In the first round of polls, held on December 27, Bazoum got just more than 39 percent of the vote. Ousmane came second, at just below 17 percent.
The 69-year-old outgoing president, Issoufou, has voluntarily decided to step down after serving two terms.
Soon after CENI’s election result announcement on Tuesday, Ousmane’s supporters came out on the streets in the capital, Niamey, and clashes with the security forces.
Ousmane’s campaign alleged widespread fraud in the recently held runoff election, including the theft and stuffing of ballot boxes and threats against voters.
In a statement, the campaign team demanded the immediate suspension of the publication of the election results, which it claims do not in any way take into account the expression of the Nigerien people for change.
Ousmane was elected as the president of Niger in 1993. He was the country’s first democratically elected president. 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.
