AFRICA :NEWS,CULTURE, SPORT.

NIAMEY (AFP) — Rebuked by the constitutional court and facing an opposition protest Sunday, President Mamadou Tandja’s search for a way to stay in power beyond a second mandate seems to have run out of legal options.
The leader’s hopes of running for a third consecutive term in office — prohibited by Niger’s constitution — were dealt a heavy blow by the court’s ruling on Friday.
It rejected the presidential decree Tandja had used to call a referendum on a new constitution on August 4, which if approved would done away with the two-term limit and let him stand in December’s presidential ballot.
Officials told AFP that the president had called a meeting of key allies to discuss his options overnight Saturday.
But it was not clear Saturday what his next moved would be, with state radio offering no clues, just a stream of messages of support for the Tandja.
The highest court in the land delivered some harsh criticism of Tandja’s plans, branding them a “true hijacking of power”.
Judges told the president he was trying to rewrite a constitution he was duty-bound to “respect and to compel others to respect”.
It was just the latest in a series of setbacks for Tandja in his struggle to hang on to power.
Efforts by his allies to get an “extension” by three years of his second mandate, which ends on December 22, were defeated.
Tandja then hit on the idea of a new constitution, a proposal that was struck down by the constitutional court and which provoked a barrage of criticism from abroad.
The regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), of which Niger is a member, threatened sanctions if the referendum was held.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also expressed concerned after Tandja dissolved the country’s parliament late last month, a day after the first constitutional court ruling went against him.
Moon called for the constitution to be respected.
Tandja’s move against the parliament suggests that the president is ready to fight to the end.
But now his allies are limited, with his ruling National Movement for a Society of Development weakened by an internal power struggle.
The battle between Tandja and his former prime minister Hama Amadou has hit the party.
Only a few of the president’s allies in the movement say they will support him unconditionally. And the army, despite a strong tradition of involvement in coups, has called on its troops to remain “totally neutral”.
Opposition parties, unions and rights groups united in the Front for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) were on Saturday celebrating the constitutional court’s latest ruling against the president.
They will keep the pressure up with a protest on Sunday and unions have called a general strike next week, the first since the country become democratic in 1993.
FDD president Mahamadou Issoufou has called for Tandja to renounce his referendum plans and declared: “We shall keep up the fight.”