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Mauritania: New beginning, hopefully
Mauritania's presidential elections, while inconclusive yet, show that the country is moving positively towards political democracy, writes James Martin in Nouakchott
Last Sunday, Mauritanians flooded to polling booths to vote in their country's first free presidential elections since independence from France in 1960.
Coming on the heels of legislative elections in February and in November and December of last year, Sunday's elections marked the final step of the country's official transition to democratic rule.
Preliminary results of the elections, released Monday morning, place Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, an independent candidate, as the front-runner, winning 25 per cent of ballots cast, with Ahmed Ould Daddah of the Rally of Democratic Forces (RFD) Party at a close second with 24 per cent. Zeine Ould Zeidane, also an independent, came in at a distant third with 14 per cent. Since neither top candidate won more than 50 per cent of the vote, the official winner will be decided in a run-off election scheduled for 25 March.
The new president will replace Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, a military official who seized power from ruler Maaouya Ould Said Ahmed Taya in August 2005 in a bloodless military coup.
Despite the divided nature of the results, elections day in Mauritania passed without major incidents, with voters turning out in high numbers throughout the desert country to participate in its first experiment in open democracy. As far north as Zouérate, a mining town near Mauritania's border with Western Sahara, citizens were seen lining up at polling stations before their official opening at 7am. High turnout continued throughout the day, dropping only slightly in hot midday hours and at prayer time.
Despite Mauritania's history of fraudulent presidential elections under the rule of Taya, the results of Sunday's poll are considered legitimate by international standards. On Monday morning, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs at the US State Department, declared the election process "credible" at a press conference in Nouakchott, the nation's capital. Helping to guarantee the fairness of the process were teams of election monitors from the United States, the European Union, the African Union, and the Arab League. American Ambassador Charles Twining thanked 15 students from Yale University for helping to monitor the elections.
More
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/836/re51.htm
Coming on the heels of legislative elections in February and in November and December of last year, Sunday's elections marked the final step of the country's official transition to democratic rule.
Preliminary results of the elections, released Monday morning, place Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, an independent candidate, as the front-runner, winning 25 per cent of ballots cast, with Ahmed Ould Daddah of the Rally of Democratic Forces (RFD) Party at a close second with 24 per cent. Zeine Ould Zeidane, also an independent, came in at a distant third with 14 per cent. Since neither top candidate won more than 50 per cent of the vote, the official winner will be decided in a run-off election scheduled for 25 March.
The new president will replace Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, a military official who seized power from ruler Maaouya Ould Said Ahmed Taya in August 2005 in a bloodless military coup.
Despite the divided nature of the results, elections day in Mauritania passed without major incidents, with voters turning out in high numbers throughout the desert country to participate in its first experiment in open democracy. As far north as Zouérate, a mining town near Mauritania's border with Western Sahara, citizens were seen lining up at polling stations before their official opening at 7am. High turnout continued throughout the day, dropping only slightly in hot midday hours and at prayer time.
Despite Mauritania's history of fraudulent presidential elections under the rule of Taya, the results of Sunday's poll are considered legitimate by international standards. On Monday morning, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs at the US State Department, declared the election process "credible" at a press conference in Nouakchott, the nation's capital. Helping to guarantee the fairness of the process were teams of election monitors from the United States, the European Union, the African Union, and the Arab League. American Ambassador Charles Twining thanked 15 students from Yale University for helping to monitor the elections.
More
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/836/re51.htm
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