What is at stake in Niger’s presidential election runoff?

Some 7.5 million people are eligible to vote in second round pitting Mohamed Bazoum against Mahamane Ousmane.

Voters in Niger will head to the polls on Sunday to choose the country’s next president, in a runoff vote that pits outgoing President Mahamadou Issoufou’s chosen successor against the country’s first democratically elected president. Mohamed Bazoum, the candidate for the ruling Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism, had secured 39.3 percent of votes in the first round of voting on December 27, well ahead of his closest rival, Mahamane Ousmane, at 16.9 percent. Hailing from Niger’s tiny ethnic Arab minority community, 61-year-old Bazoum held key ministries in Issoufou’s cabinet and is widely seen as the favourite against Ousmane. The 71-year-old in 1993 won the West African country’s first multiparty elections but was overthrown three years later in a coup and has since failed to regain the presidency.