The president of Niger is behaving like, well, a tin-pot dictator:

It appears that Niger has now become the fifth African country to suffer a coup in the past year. It is a disturbing development, undermining the trend towards democracy in the continent as a whole, and it should be of particular concern to Canada, the second-biggest foreign investor in Niger. Niger’s president, Mamadou Tandja, has dissolved parliament and vowed to “guarantee stability” by holding a referendum to extend his grip on power. The constitution prohibits him from seeking a third term in office (since he has already served two terms as president) but he plans to rewrite the constitution to give him exactly what he wants: more years in power.

The problem is not simply that Tandja is seeking a third term in office, but the fact that he’s rolled over virtually every legal and political institution in the country in order to do so. The constitutional court rules that he’s breaking both domestic law and international treaty obligations, he ignores it; parliament objects, he dissolves it; mass street protests ensue, he issues a decree banning protest and calls in the army to enforce it.

This will be an interesting test for the African Union. In the past, the AU has been quick to condemn unconstitutional changes of power (such as the coups that took place in Madagascar and the Comoros), but they’ve been less likely to condemn presidents who unconstitutionally maintain power when they should be surrendering it. As a result, it’s easy to get the impression that the AU is committed to preserving the political status quo rather than preserving constitutional rule. On the other hand, other countries in the region have reacted strongly, even threatening to impose sanctions if Tandja does not back down, so perhaps the AU will follow suit.