Publicité
Nigeria’s Yar’Adua gets backing and defends poll win
Par
Partager cet article
Nigeria’s Yar’Adua gets backing and defends poll win
Nigeria’s president-elect, Umaru Yar'Adua, has said he won disputed elections “fair and square” and received a first positive message from a foreign power, South Africa.
Foreign governments had been either silent or critical about the April 21 election that gave Yar’Adua a mandate to lead the African state of 140 million people for four years, until President Thabo Mbeki wrote to congratulate him. “In his congratulatory letter ... Mbeki expressed South Africa's intention to forge closer working relations between the two countries”, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement late on Wednesday.
Backing from South Africa, the continent’s biggest diplomatic power, will come as a relief to Yar’Adua after widespread condemnation of the elections.
Mbeki said he hoped parties and candidates would use only constitutional means to redress grievances. The US State Department said earlier in the week the polls were “flawed” and has not yet sent a message to Yar’Adua. European Union observers said the elections were “not credible” and “fell far short of basic international standards”.
Observers from the regional West African bloc ECOWAS were among those who criticised the polls, but most African governments were expected not to openly contest the result.
Analysts say there is an unwritten rule in Africa that governments do not speak out about the internal affairs of other states, although the African Union has tried to promote more criticism through a “peer review” mechanism. The handover of power from President Olusegun Obasanjo to Yar’Adua on May 29 will be the first from one civilian president to another in the history of Africa’s most populous country. But many Nigerians say Obasanjo picked Yar’Adua, a retiring governor of remote Katsina State, as his successor because he intends to continue to influence Nigerian affairs through Yar’Adua after he steps down.
Yar’Adua, who has denied he would be Obasanjo’s puppet, defended his election victory. “I believe I won this election fair and square,” he told the BBC in an interview . “Anybody who is aggrieved has the right to seek redress in our law courts and I will respect whatever judgment the law courts pass,” he said.
Publicité
Publicité
Les plus récents
