NIAMEY (Reuters) - The priorities of Niger"s military junta are to clean up politics and restore democracy by holding transparent elections, a junta spokesman said on Wednesday.
The junta, which calls itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD), overthrew President Mamadou Tandja last week he had ruled the West African uranium exporter for more than a decade.
"We are here to clean things up. That involves a lot of
things," spokesman Col. Abdulkarim Gukoye told reporters.
He said an election would be held but when asked about a date, he replied: "It will not be a unilateral decision from the CSRD."
The coup, the fourth since Niger"s independence from France in 1960, was welcomed by Nigeriens tired of months of political bickering in a nation that is one of the world"s poorest but attracts billions of dollars of investment in its oil and uranium.
Foreign governments have criticized the army takeover but diplomats recognize, in private, that it has offered a breakthrough in a stalemate where international mediation failed.
Tuesday, the junta named Mahamadou Danda as prime minister. Danda served as information minister in the transitional government that followed Niger"s last coup in 1999, when the army ousted the president and organized elections soon afterwards. Since then he has worked as an administrator.
(Reporting by David Lewis; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Angus MacSwan)
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