Voters in Mauritania’s fledgling democracy head to the polls

An estimated 2 million people are expected to vote in the presidential election in Mauritania in what could be the desert nation’s first civilian-to-civilian transition.

After independence from France in 1960, the west African state experienced multiple coups in the following years. The fledging democracy has been somewhat stable since 2019, when Mohamed Ould Ghazouani was elected president.

Ghazouani, a 67-year-old former army chief and key figure in the 2008 overthrow of Sidi Abdallahi, the country’s first democratically elected president, is seeking a second and final five-year term in the election on Saturday.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) cleared six candidates to contest the election alongside Ghazouani. If no candidate receives an absolute majority on Saturday, a second round will be held in two weeks between the pair with the highest votes.

The main challenger is the opposition leader and lawmaker Biram Dah Abeid, who made his name as a racial equality advocate in a country that became the last in the world to officially abolish slavery in 1981.

Abeid has blamed the current administration for poor economic conditions in the country, where half of the population are multidimensionally poor, according to the United Nations.

“The Mauritanian regime has always lived on the pillage of wealth, the repression of populations and the use of forgery,” the 59-year-old told journalists recently in Nouakchott, the capital.

But the incumbent is widely expected to again defeat Abeid, who was runner-up in 2019.

Gilles Yabi, the founder of the Dakar-based West Africa Citizen thinktank, said: “Ghazouani will win because of the usual advantages of incumbency and has the typical profile of presidents of Mauritania, being a former general, head of the army and minister of defence. It is extremely difficult to think that there will be a surprise in who wins these elections.”

As it goes to the ballot box, the country of 4.7 million people will also be under the international spotlight given its putschist past in a region with six successful coups in less than four years.

Two of those happened in Mali, its eastern neighbour, which continues to grapple with a decade-long jihadist violence. That crisis has triggered another: thousands of displaced people continue to flee into Mauritania, triggering conflict between local and settler fishers over shrinking lakes as the impact of climate change deepens in the the Sahel region.

To its south-west is Senegal, which has been hailed by the international community as an example to follow, in regard to the conduct of its 24 March election after the chaos caused by the government’s initial delay.

More than two dozen observers from 16 African countries will be part of the African Union’s mission to the election. On the list are Senegal, Guinea and Nigeria, which are part of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) that has hit states where coups have happened with a range of sanctions that have led to fissures within the group.

Mauritania, which has a standing partnership for economic and security cooperation with Ecowas, was a founding member of the regional bloc in 1975 but exited in 2000 to join the more autocratic Arab Maghreb Union.

Still, it is seen as a reliable ally in the Sahel for counterinsurgency operations within west Africa; no attacks have happened on Mauritanian soil since the December 2011 abduction of a soldier by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Ghazouani, who currently holds the one-year rotational presidency of the African Union, is brandishing that stability as part of his leadership credentials, pledging to continue to keep the peace if re-elected. “Our army is fully capable of ensuring your security and safeguarding our national territory,” he said during final rallies this week.