Dakar — Niger has completed training 80 local independent election observes that will supervise its October 20 parliamentary polls.

The elections for the 113 seats representing the country's eight regions, will be contested by 830 candidates. However, several opposition parties are boycotting.

The elections would enable the country to return to a "normal constitutional order", says Mr Ibrahim Massaoudou, the chairman of the Autonomous Observatory for Good Governance and Development, and one of the trainers of the local election observers.

Good governance

Mr Massaoudou told the local press in the capital, Niamey on Wednesday at the end of the training, that it was prompted by the desire to inform the world of the spirit of good governance and democracy upon which the government of President Mamadou Tandja is built.

But critics said the statement sounded ridiculous.

President Tandja last May unilaterally dissolved the country's parliament, sacked the chairman of Niger's constitutional court and organised a controversial referendum to endorse constitutional amendments that now allow him to run for a third term.

There will be no international observers to supervise the elections.