The new president will take control on 1 January. About 4.5m people were registered to vote at more than 10,000 voting stations scattered across Niger, a vast land-locked country lying south of the Sahara Desert. Students in the capital Niamey had threatened to disrupt the election. But there were no reports of violence. The students are angry at delays of up to 10 months in the payment of their allowances.
Civil servants are also owed months of back pay as are soldiers, who have mutinied in the past.
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