The results of the first round of the presidential elections in Niger give victory to Mohamed Bazoum

The first round of the presidential elections in Niger was held on 27 December. In the same elections, Nigerians also voted for Parliament. The day, in which nearly 70 percent of the electorate took part, went smoothly despite the pandemic and the insecurity caused by the Jihadist groups in the areas bordering Mali (Greater Sahara Islamic State) and Nigeria (West African Islamic State and Boko Haram). With respect to the result of the legislative elections, the governing party, the PNDS, won an important victory with 80 seats out of the 171 that generally make up the National Assembly. The next party was MODEN/FA-Lumana, the party led by Hama Amadou, which won 19 seats. The seats for Nigerians living abroad have been left vacant because the elections could not be held abroad due to the pandemic. 

After a week of waiting, the Independent National Electoral Commission announced the results of this first round on 2 January. As expected, the candidate of the PNDS party currently in power, Mohamed Bazoum, won the elections with almost 40% of the vote. In second place was the former president of Niger from 1993 to 1996, Mahamane Ousmane, with 17 percent of the vote. The most popular opposition leader, Hama Amadou, was unable to stand for election as his candidacy was declared ineligible by the Constitutional Court after he was sentenced to one year's imprisonment for trafficking in persons. This decision was strongly criticised by the opposition. At the last moment, Hama Amadou decided to support opposition candidate Mahamane Ousmane, calling on the electorate to vote for him five days before the presidential election. In third place, former Prime Minister Seini Oumarou was left with almost 9% of the vote. None of the candidates who stood in the first round were unknown in Nigerian politics, having been practically all members of the previous governments (presidents, ministers, prime ministers, etc.). Ousmane was the first democratically elected President in 1993 until the 1996 coup d'état. Ousmane was then President of the National Assembly of Niger from 1999 to 2009 and President of the ECOWAS Parliament from 2006 to 2011. For his part, Bazoum has been Minister of the Interior, Public Security, Decentralisation and Religious Affairs from 2016 to June 2020, previously he was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2011 to 2015 and from 1995 to 1996, curiously under the presidency of the candidate he will now face.  Despite the perceived continuity of the ten years of Mahamadou Issoufou's previous government, this is the first time in Niger's history that a democratically elected president has been replaced by another. Niger's recent political history is marked by four coups d'état, the last one in 2010. 

With a result of nearly 40 percent of the vote, Mohamed Bazoum will probably be the winner of the second round of the presidential elections to be held on 21 February, once the Constitutional Court has validated the result and rectified any errors or appeals. If Bazoum had secured 50 percent of the votes, the second round would not have taken place. Although several political and social leaders of the CAP21 coalition promised to support the opposition candidate who reached the second round, none of the other candidates who lost during these elections has yet called for a vote for the opposition leader. The only support he has, apart from that of Hama Amadou, is that of Ibrahim Yacouba, who came fifth in these elections and with whom he made a pact before the elections were held.