Niger opposition leader rejects coup plot "lies"

A prominent opposition leader in Niger has dismissed as "baseless lies" claims that opposition politicians were involved in a plot to assassinate Niger's President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara.

"The so-called attempted assassination plot against Gen.

Mainassara is a cliche of baseless lies because opposition parties have always fought through democratic means to achieve their goal of restoring democracy," Mahamadou Issoufou of the Niger Party for Democracy and Socialism said, in comments broadcast by Radio France Internationale on Saturday.

"It is Gen.

Mainassara who has completely blocked the situation through his reckless management of the country.

We must admit the fact that Niger is currently going through a multi-dimensional - political, economic, and social - crisis, and Gen.

Mainassara is seeking ways of diverting the attention of the people of Niger from the real problems they face," he said.

"This state of affairs has compelled the regime to resort to evasive tactics and to concoct all these plots, the commonplace gimmicks of all dictatorships," Issoufou said in comments broadcast by the radio.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.