The AFC based its broad stance on opposition to the National Movement for a Developing Society-Nassara (MNSD-Nassara), the political coalition set up by former ruler General Ali Saibou, as well as a perception among some of the traditional elites of Nigerien Hausaland, that previous regimes had favoured the Djerma--Songhai since independence.
As well, one traditional Djerma leader, Moumouni Adamou Djermakoye, lost out of a role in the leadership of the MNSD, and brought his Nigerien Alliance for Democracy and Progress (ANDP-Zaman Lahiya) into the AFC.
But the AFC's fragile coalition, in no small measure based on simple desire to keep the MNSD out,[1] soon teetered.
In the February 1995 elections which Ousmane called to form a new house, the MNSD took parliament and the Prime Minister's post, with the AFC winning only 40 of the 83 seats, and leading to a period of rancorous cohabitation with President Mahamane Ousmane.
This period of government infighting led, in part, to the January 1996 military coup by Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara,[1] new presidential elections in July 1996, and the military's arrest of major opposition candidates to Maïnassara.