Niger seems to be on the road to democracy. The first stage was local elections that were held on 11 January. Presidential and legislative elections are scheduled for 31 January.

The results of the legislative elections are hard to come by. However, there seem to be some hard figures here.

The largest parties seem to be the following:

Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (Parti Nigerien pour la Democratie et le Socialisme – PNSD). Led by Mahamadou Issoufou, who was PM from 1993-94, the PNDS has often been the second largest party since democratisation in the early 1990s. The PNDS seems to have won the largest number of seats at the local elections.

MODEN/FA Lumana. This is a new party led by Hama Amadou, who was PM from 1995-1996 and from 2000-2007. He was previously a member of the MNSD (below), but was persecuted in the latter years of the regime of ousted president, Mamadou Tandja. He left the MNSD and formed the MODEN/FA Lumana, which appears to have won the second largest number of seats just ahead of the MNSD. There is a report in French here.

National Movement for the Society of Development (Mouvement National pour la Société du Développement – MNSD). This is the former ruling party of the ousted president, Mamadou Tandja.

The fourth party appears to be the Democratic and Social Convention -Rahama (Convention démocratique et sociale-Rahama, CDS-Rahama). This is the party of former president, Mahamane Ousmane, who was ousted in a coup in 1995. The party’s poor showing relative to the three parties above is a surprise.

The fifth and final party is the Social Democratic Rally (Rassemblement social démocratique-Gaskiya – RSD -Gaskiya). This was a party that split from the CDS. It now has only slightly fewer seats than the CDS.

There are other parties too, but these are the five largest.

Basically, there seems to be multi-party competition in Niger. The junta seems to be keeping its promise of allowing free elections. However, the real test will be the elections at the end of this month.