Foreign investment helps Niger leader defy critics

DAKAR

Niger’s president will not be swayed by either local protest or foreign condemnation from his plan to extend his mandate, even though such a move will stoke instability in the African uranium producer, analysts said.

President Mamadou Tandja will be able to resist the twin pressures, buoyed as he is by underlying support from former colonial ruler France and by Chinese inward investment.

Tandja’s plans to hold a referendum next month on extending his rule when his last term ends later this year have also underscored a trend of many West African nations backsliding on democratic gains made over the last decade.

The path towards the August 4 referendum has seen Tandja rule by decree since he dissolved parliament and the country’s top court, which opposed the plan.

The media has been muzzled and politicians uniting against the plan temporarily arrested.

Sources of revenue
West Africa’s regional body ECOWAS has responded by sending teams to Niger to protest and the European Union became the first donor to back up statements with financial sanctions by delaying some aid, but analysts say Tandja remains on track.

“I think Tandja won’t be influenced. He has alternative sources of revenue,” said Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at think-tank Chatham House.

The vast desert nation has struck a $5 billion deal with Chinese state-owned oil company CNPC to produce oil and build a refinery.

The Islamic Development Bank has pledged over $236 million for a hydropower project. A planned multi-billion dollar pipeline across the Sahara is also due to pass through Niger.

But Vines said key to Tandja’s confidence is the reaction of France, whose president recently visited the country and state nuclear giant Areva started building a 1.2 billion euro ($1.69 billion) uranium mine.

“The French position has been full of mixed messages. This derives from the importance of Niger – the French rely on Niger for energy security,” Vines said, stressing that one third of French nuclear power, which supplies nearly 90 percent of the country’s electricity, comes from Niger’s uranium.

“(On) energy security, a different logic kicks in.”

A French government spokesman on Friday said that there was no ambiguity in Paris’s position and that it was “not at all satisfied” with the referendum plans. President Nicolas Sarkozy and his foreign minister have both publicly condemned the bid.

Idealism and realism
But critics say there is a difference between public policy and private messages and the row underscores how France’s Africa policy has not changed despite vows by Sarkozy for reform after years of accusations that France put its own economic interests before rights and democracy in its former colonies.

“It is France going back to its old ways. France has abdicated its responsibilities ...it seems that Tandja knows that he has got the green light,” Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, an Africa analyst at Eurasia Group, told Reuters.

“The real story is Areva ...a huge economic interest. It is an example of idealism and realism meeting and realism winning.”

Although there are few signs of Tandja yielding to pressure not to hold the referendum, which few see him losing, or investors pulling out as a result, the political crisis it has led to risks long-term instability in the country.

Four main groups of opposition and civil society leaders this week formed a coalition and have called on supporters to block, not just boycott the vote.

Calls for protests have had mixed results but several have turned violent and the government has reiterated threats to crack down on trouble-makers.

Threats of aids cuts
“I think it is a serious threat …it seems obvious to me that the military will eventually take over. It is the really sad case of the demise of democracy because of strategic interests,” Spio-Garbra said.

Trouble in Niger will hurt the country’s investments but is also indicative of the tide of instability in the region.

Guinea Bissau is currently holding elections to replace an assassinated president. Guinea’s military junta appears reluctant to hold elections having seized power late last year. In Mauritania, polls are finally taking place after a 2008 coup.

Half a dozen other nations have leaders who have been in power for decades or are led by sons of former rulers.

Long-maligned for being toothless, ECOWAS is taking tougher public positions but must also contend with some leaders who are strengthened by competition over their resources rather than weakened by threats of aid cuts from traditional donors.

“After a period of stabilisation, there seems to be some slippage and ECOWAS is concerned. We will see how much further (than diplomacy) they will go,” said Vines.

“The complacency that West Africa had stabilised and was out of the woods needs to be challenged,” he added. (Reuters)