[3] There were two main opposition candidates also vying for the top post, Seyni Oumarou of the National Movement for the Society of Development (MNSD), who lost to Issoufou in 2011, and Hama Amadou of MODEN/FA, who has been campaigning from prison since November 2015.

[5] Niger faced a string of attacks by various insurgents, most notably Boko Haram in the preceding months, and security and poverty alleviation were central to most candidates' campaigns.

[16] Provisional results released on 26 February 2016 showed President Issoufou with about 48% of the vote, falling just short of a first round majority.

Noting that some of the first round candidates had backed Issoufou, Massaoudou argued that the opposition "withdrew to avoid being beaten".

After a medical crisis in which he was said to have briefly lost consciousness, he was moved from the prison in Filingue to Niamey; he was then taken to Paris for treatment on 16 March.

Given the boycott, results announced on 22 March showed an unsurprisingly large victory for President Issoufou, who was credited with 92.5% of the vote.

Meanwhile, on 22 March COPA denounced the election as fraudulent and rejected the results, saying that Niger would "have no legitimate president" after Issoufou's first term ended.

[25] Amadou Cissé, the Union for Democracy and the Republic candidate, challenged the results and accused the government for creating "thousands of polling stations" to skew the outcome.

[29] The Niamey Court of Appeal issued an order for the "provisional release" of Amadou on 29 March 2016, although by that point he had already been out of the country for nearly two weeks.