The Islamic Republic of Mauritania, the most stable country in a Sahel shaken by jihadist violence and military dictatorships, goes to the polls this Saturday in presidential elections with little suspense. The current president, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, is the top favorite to repeat the position against an opposition divided between six other candidates, among whom are Hamadi Ould Sidi El Moctar, representing the moderate Islamists of Tawassoul, and the historic defender human rights activist Biram Dah Abeid. In recent years, this stability has allowed Mauritania to go from being a minor actor to becoming one of the great allies of the West in the region, both in terms of security and migration control.
General Ghazouani was always the power in the shadows until former president Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, author of the last coup d’état that this country experienced in 2008, appointed him his successor for the 2019 elections, in which he won a comfortable victory. In these five years, Ghazouani took a step forward to consolidate his leadership. The most serious threat he had to face was the constant interference from his predecessor, who always dreamed of a return to Vladimir Putin: today Aziz is in prison after a five-year sentence for illicit enrichment. Ghazouani emerged victorious from the attack.
During this period, the head of state, who is also today president of the African Union, kept his country safe from jihadist attacks thanks to a mix of religious dialogue, reinforcement of military capabilities and tacit agreements with the radicals: After a wave of attacks and kidnappings between 2005 and 2011, which left dozens dead and practically wiped out tourism in the country, Mauritania has not suffered any attacks. Security has been another fundamental factor to protect the country from the coup adventures that its neighbors Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger suffer today.
These three Sahel countries, ruled by military juntas, have expelled French forces from their territory, blowing up the defence and security architecture that has prevailed in the last decade and reorienting their strategic alliances towards Russia. Mauritania, however, has opted for the opposite path: to strengthen its agreements with a West that needs eyes and ears in the region.
Epicenter of irregular migration
The constant flow of Malian refugees to Mauritania is a huge challenge that has intensified over the last year, but the European Union, which has just disbursed 210 million euros in aid, and Spain in particular, are also concerned about the departure of canoes from its coasts. Nouadhibou has become the new epicentre of irregular migration to the Canary Islands.
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This rain of millions for sectors such as training, energy transformation, infrastructure construction or social programs and the fight against poverty, one of the axes of government action in the last five years, contributes to supporting Ghazouani as the most reliable option. However, the political battle does not stop and the historic opposition leader Biram Dah Abeid – who came in second place in the 2019 elections, with a respectable 18.5% of the votes – maintains the tension with a speech that is annoying to those in power. Although he has lost the punch of his glorious years, he is a candidate who must be counted on.
“There will not be fair elections because justice is not independent, it is under the orders of power. But we have no other option, we are non-violent militants, our fight is peaceful. “We prefer to sacrifice ourselves than to opt for a confrontation that could set the country on fire,” says this descendant of slaves who one day promised his father that he would fight to the end the discrimination and racism that, according to what he denounces to the point of exhaustion, the black population suffers in his country. “Racism, discrimination and very harsh exclusion persist for the blackafrican. It is seen in positions in the State, in the army, in public agencies, in companies, in justice, in linguistic policy. It is an Arab-Muslim apartheid implemented in West Africa. And Europe knows it,” she adds bitterly.
The third in the running are the Islamists of Tawassoul, the main opposition party with 11 deputies in the National Assembly, who for the first time after its legalization in 2017 have decided to present a candidate for the presidential elections, Hamadi Ould Sidi El Moctar. However, the great challenge of these elections for Ghazouani is not to defeat his rivals, with few options, but rather to ensure that the electoral process concludes smoothly. Suspicion of fraud hovered over the 2019 elections and post-election riots left three dead and forced a curfew to be declared for two weeks.
To prevent this, the electoral commission has made an effort to convince citizens that a vote-rigging is impossible, with a new computer system that allows the publication of results in real time and with total transparency. The opposition, however, doubts its effectiveness and remains vigilant.
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