The military perpetrators of the coup in Niger announced on August 7, 2023 the appointment of a Prime Minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, in a press release read on national television, at a time when actors from the international community seek to restore constitutional order since the overthrow of President Mohamed Bazoum.
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At Niger, the junta continues to settle in power. The soldiers who overthrew President Bazoum almost two weeks ago have appointed a Prime Minister. In a press release read on August 7, 2023 on public television, the putschists announced that Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine would take over as head of government.
He is a politician well known to Nigeriens because hehe last was in fact in government more than a dozen years ago, as Minister of Finance, under the presidency of Mamadou Tandja.
An economist, above all
Aged 58, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine is above all an economist. He comes from Zinder, the country’s second city. A graduate of the National School of Administration in Niamey, the Center for Financial, Economic and Banking Studies in France, he joined the Ministry of Economy in 1991. He also worked for the African Development Bank (AfDB) which he represented in Chad, Côte d’Ivoire and Gabon.
In 2001, when Mamadou Tandja came to power in Niger, he quickly appointed Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine as chief of staff and then finance minister, at a time when the country was undergoing a serious economic crisis. Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine also belongs to President Tandja’s party, the MNSD-Nassara, the former single party.
With the putsch of 2010, he lost his post as minister
But Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine lost his post in 2010, when power was overthrown by a military coup. It was therefore another putsch, 13 years later, which this time propelled him to Prime Minister.
The MNSD-Nassara had supported President Mohamed Bazoum in the second round of the 2021 presidential election. The putschists therefore chose a member of the party of the man they brought down to take the reins of government.
Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine is therefore supposed to replace Prime Minister Mahamadou Ouhoumoudou, who was in Europe during the coup. A Mahamadou Ouhoumoudou who does not recognize the authority of the junta. But the military have obviously decided to move their agenda forward.
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