ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the economic and financial situation that helped to form the setting for political change, key aspects of the political evolution of Niger between 1958 and 1987, and the evolution of the General Ali Saibou regime between 1987 and 1990. The national conference's decision to prohibit President Saibou from running in the presidential elections of 1993 put an abrupt end to his political ambitions and relaunched the struggle for the leadership of the National Movement for a Development Society (MNSD). The political stakes raised by the application of adjustment policies tended to compromise the benefits of the organized groups of the modern sector as much as the privileges of the traditional political class. Thus this struggle at the economic level gave rise in large part to the transition towards a pluralist system and the remaking of the political class in Niger.
