NIAMEY—Niger's parliament has voted to try former Prime Minister Hama Amadou on corruption charges, lawmakers said on Tuesday, a move that could bar him from running in the impoverished country's 2009 presidential poll.
Amadou, in office from 2000 until parliament voted him out in May 2007 over a separate corruption scandal, is accused of embezzling 100 million CFA francs ($237,000) from a fund aimed at helping the press.
Until he was ousted, Amadou had been considered a favourite to succeed President Mamadou Tandja when his second mandate expires next year. Amadou accused Tandja last week of launching a "political plot" to bar him from running in the election.
Niger's parliament, which decides whether to pursue charges brought against senior government figures, voted late on Monday to put Amadou on trial by 72 votes to 28.
The public prosecutor can now have the former prime minister arrested. Any trial would take place in a high court which hears cases involving government members charged with crimes committed while in power, officials said.
Amadou chairs the majority National Movement for Society and Development party (MNSD), to which Tandja belongs, but could lose his civic and political rights if he is convicted.
He is the third politician parliament has voted to put on trial in recent years. In 2006 it voted to put two former education ministers on trial, in a bigger corruption scandal that led to Amadou losing the parliamentary vote of confidence in 2007.
Nouhou Arzika, president of the Civic Movement for Peace and the Republic, a civil society umbrella group, welcomed the vote.
"With this decision we can say the fight against impunity and corruption is making progress. We dare hope it will not stop here," he said.
Niger is the world's third largest uranium producer, but many Nigeriens live in poverty. In 2005 an estimated 3.6 million people ran short of food, shocking TV viewers abroad with images of wasted bodies and prompting an international food aid effort.
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