General Maïnassara then Chief of Staff himself took power 'reluctantly' in January 1996 (AC Vol 37 No 3) when deadlock had arisen in a newly elected regime between the then President Mahamane Ousmane and his Prime Minister Hama Amadou...
Before that he was a leading figure in Hama Amadou's Mouvement National pour une Société de Développement (MNSD) the former single party; Amadou like others was arrested earlier this year and initially charged with creating an illegal militia...
The idea would be to isolate the followers of Hama Amadou who served as Prime Minister in the 'cohabitation' period with the man Baré overthrew ex-President Mahamane Ousmane...
Yet in 1995 squabbles between Mahamane Ousmane and deposed Premier Hama Amadou weakened the political system and cleared the ground for Maïnassara's coup...
One problem for those who condemned the coup (including the EU International Monetary Fund Canada and the United States) is that the 'military parenthesis' has been publicly accepted by the very men the soldiers overthrew: President Mahamane Ousmane; his rival Premier Hama Amadou; and National Assembly President Issoufou Mahamadou...
President Mahamane had for several months been at odds with Prime Minister Hama Amadou (AC Vol 36 No 17) with the latter appearing to have the better support-base among the political mainstream and the military...