{"id":52943,"date":"2020-12-26T20:15:10","date_gmt":"2020-12-27T01:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=52943"},"modified":"2020-12-26T21:29:44","modified_gmt":"2020-12-27T02:29:44","slug":"niger-heads-to-polls-in-search-of-first-democratic-transition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/niger-heads-to-polls-in-search-of-first-democratic-transition\/","title":{"rendered":"Niger heads to polls in search of first democratic transition"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fniger-heads-to-polls-in-search-of-first-democratic-transition%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=52943&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>December 27, 2020<\/p>\n<p>By Boureima Balima<\/p>\n<p>NIAMEY (Reuters) \u2013 Niger votes in an election on Sunday that is expected to lead to the first transfer of power between two democratically elected presidents in a country reeling from Islamist violence.<\/p>\n<p>Former interior minister Mohamed Bazoum, the ruling party\u2019s candidate, is the overwhelming favourite to succeed President Mahamadou Issoufou, who is stepping down after two five-year terms leading the largely desert country of 23 million.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad-spot\">\n<p><!-- AuctionX Display platform tag START --><\/p>\n<div id=\"24697x300x250x4195x_ADSLOT1\"><\/div>\n<p><!-- AuctionX Display platform tag END --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-pw-desk=\"med_rect_atf\"><\/div>\n<div data-pw-mobi=\"med_rect_atf\"><\/div>\n<p>Bazoum, 60, has promised continuity with Issoufou\u2019s policies, while also vowing to clean up pervasive corruption.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf I am lucky enough to win this election, you will have chosen someone who is ready from day one,\u201d he said in a campaign video.<\/p>\n<p>Niger faces twin security crises. It has suffered repeated attacks near its western borders with Mali and Burkina Faso from militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State. Near its southeastern border with Nigeria it faces attacks from Boko Haram. Hundreds of soldiers and civilians have been killed in the last year alone.<\/p>\n<p>The economic situation is also critical. More than 40% of the population lives in extreme poverty, and the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed growth to a crawl, compounding the effects of climate change and low prices for top export uranium.<\/p>\n<p>Bazoum faces 29 other candidates, who will hope to force a second round by denying him an outright majority of the vote.<\/p>\n<p>Hama Amadou, who finished runner-up in the last election, was barred from running because of a criminal conviction, leaving the opposition without an obvious figurehead.<\/p>\n<p>But last week, Amadou\u2019s party called on its supporters to turn out for Mahamane Ousmame, who was president from 1993-1996.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter my candidate was disqualified, I didn\u2019t have the motivation to come out and vote,\u201d said Ali Hamma, an Amadou supporter. \u201cBut with the new instructions, I am going to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A peaceful transfer of power would be a milestone for Niger, which has experienced four coups since gaining independence from France in 1960.<\/p>\n<p>It would also stand in stark contrast to Ivory Coast and Guinea, whose presidents this year used constitutional changes to extend their tenures to three terms, raising fears of a democratic backslide in West Africa.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>(Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Christina Fincher)<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad-spot\">\n<p><!-- AuctionX Display platform tag START --><\/p>\n<div id=\"24697x300x250x4195x_ADSLOT1\"><\/div>\n<p><!-- AuctionX Display platform tag END --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-pw-desk=\"med_rect_atf\"><\/div>\n<div data-pw-mobi=\"med_rect_atf\"><\/div>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/niger-heads-to-polls-in-search-of-first-democratic-transition\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Niger heads to polls in search of first democratic transition<\/a> first appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">One America News Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>December 27, 2020 By Boureima Balima NIAMEY (Reuters) \u2013 Niger votes in an election on Sunday that is expected to lead to the first transfer of power between two democratically &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2273675,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2273675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}