Mauritanians prepare to vote

2009-07-16 17:27

Nouakchott - Mauritanians vote in a presidential election on Saturday a year after the overthrow of the country's first elected president, with the coup leader among the favourites.

General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz swapped his military fatigues for civilian clothes, stepping down from power in April and resigning from the army in order to contest the election as the self-styled "candidate of the poor".

Ould Abdel Aziz, who overthrew president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in the August 6 coup, is one of nine candidates running in the elections, which are designed to restore constitutional democracy to the northwestern African country.

The former junta chief told his supporters during campaigning earlier this month that he would "put an end to the waste and all the shocks that have brought Mauritania to its knees after several decades of misrule."

'We're confident'

The three main opposition leaders are all running in the election, which is taking place only after an internationally-brokered bid led by Senegal to end a political crisis in a country twice the size of France.

"The right conditions are there, we're confident, we're going to have more than 300 monitors deployed across the country," said the committee chief in the International Contact Group for Mauritania, Mamahat Saleh Anif.

The ex-junta chief's biggest challengers are Ahmed Ould Daddah, head of the main opposition party, the Rally of Democratic Forces, parliamentary speaker Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, who is the candidate of the National Front for the Defence of Democracy, and Jemil Ould Mansour, leader of the Islamist party Tewassoul.

Former prime minister Sghaier Ould MBareck, early this month announced that he was withdrawing as a candidate to support Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, whom he called the "candidate of constructive change and serenity".

Talk of real change

Each main candidate has attempted to broaden their support base with talk of real change, economic and social progress and development in the largely arid nation on the southwestern side of the Sahara.

For the first time the election is being contested by a moderate Islamist, Jemil Ould Mansour, head of the country's only Islamist political party.

Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, who led a failed coup against Maaouiya Ould Taya in 2003, is also running.

Some 1.2 million of the nation's three million people are eligible to vote.

After a lacklustre campaign, observers believe that no candidate is strong enough to emerge alone from the first round and that a second round run-off is likely on August 1.

The campaign's only significant moment of controversy came when it entered its closing stages this week, when the state's media watchdog criticised a televised speech by Ould Abdel Aziz attacking Ould Boulkheir's record as parliamentary speaker.

The international community is bankrolling the election and sending 250 observers to monitor the polling, mainly from the AU, the EU, and the Arab League and the International Francophonie Organisation.

Ould Abdel Aziz at first sought to stage a presidential vote last June 6, but this deepened the political crisis in the wake of his coup.

An agreement to hold no elections before July 18 was only hammered out at the last minute, then the opposition was slow to come back on board during a mediation process led by Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade.

- AFP