Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani has won 56% of the vote in Saturday’s election, according to results published by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI). These figures guarantee his re-election for a second term as head of the country without the need for a second round. However, his main rival and opposition leader Biram Dah Abeid, who won 22% of the votes, has rejected the results and denounced electoral fraud.
The elections, which had a turnout of 55.4%, were held relatively calmly and without serious incidents, but tensions began to rise as the counting began. On Sunday, with the counting already underway, Abeid accused the Ceni of staging an electoral coup. “We will only recognise our own results and, on that basis, we will take to the streets to reject this electoral robbery,” said Abeid. Shortly afterwards, law enforcement surrounded the candidate’s headquarters and arrested his campaign manager.
The Minister of the Interior, Mohamed Ahmed Ould Mohamed Lemine, assured that the Government had aborted an attempt at destabilization carried out by one of the candidates who was instigating groups of young people to create problems in the streets. “Certain racist movements known for their hostility to national unity have crept on the waves of the presidential election to try to achieve their ignoble objectives,” said Lemine, referring to the main opposition candidate and his party.
Security forces have been on high alert in recent days to prevent a repeat of the 2019 scenario, when Ghazouani’s victory with 52% of the vote was already rejected by the opposition candidate Abeid. The subsequent protests left three dead and forced the authorities to declare a curfew for two weeks. Ceni is expected to officially announce the provisional results on Monday, which place the leader of the Tawassoul Islamists, Hamadi Ould Sidi El Moctar, in third place with 13% of the vote.
General Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, 67, was for years the right-hand man of former president Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz. Between 2008 and 2018 he was the head of the Armed Forces and later held the position of Minister of Defense. In 2019, given the impossibility of Abdelaziz running for a third term due to the existence of a constitutional limit, he was designated by Abdelaziz as his successor and candidate for the presidential elections, achieving victory in the first round.
In these five years, Ghazouani has managed to maintain the policy of his predecessor and keep Mauritania safe from the jihadist violence that tears the Sahel apart thanks to a mix of religious dialogue, tacit agreements with radicals and reinforcement of military capabilities. Furthermore, the emergence of military dictatorships that have turned towards Russia in the region, such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, have turned Mauritania into the best ally of the West and the European Union in the Sahel, with special interest in security but also in immigration control.
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With twice the surface area of Spain but only about 4.7 million inhabitants, Mauritania has important natural resources such as fish, iron ore and gold, its main exports. In the coming years, it is expected to begin exporting gas with the start of exploitation of the Gran Tortuga deposit that it shares with Senegal and to advance its projects for the production of green hydrogen. Despite this, 57% of the population lives in poverty, especially in rural areas, according to Unicef.
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