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Mauritania: Incumbent President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz on track to win presidential election
Incumbent Mauritania President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. PHOTO/File
Voters in Mauritania on Saturday cast ballots in a presidential election that incumbent Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz was expected to win handily as main opposition rivals boycotted the vote in the north west African nation.
Aziz – a former army general, has campaigned strongly on his success in fighting armed groups linked to al-Qaeda at home and in the neighboring Sahel nations.
Despite the opposition boycott of the election, queues snaked outside several polling stations in the capital Nouakchott and at many voting centers around the country.
According to many voters, the country which had been wracked by jihadist violence up until 2010, had found peace.
Kidnappings and attacks by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) were frequent when Aziz came to power, but he boasts he has turned his nation into a regional haven of peace, thanks to his reorganization of the military and security forces.
“The first point where Aziz’s success is undeniable is indeed that of security and stability in the country, driving away the specter of the terrorist threat,” said Mohamed Fall Ould Oumeire, managing editor of the daily newspaper “La Tribune”.
Mauritania, sandwiched between the west coast of Africa and the Sahara desert, is seen by regional leaders as a bulwark against al-Qaeda-linked groups. In 2010 and 2011, Mauritanian troops carried out successful “preventative” raids on AQIM bases in neighboring Mali, before the armed fundamentalists could carry out planned attacks on Mauritania.
Aziz has also been heavily involved as head of the African Union in efforts to end conflict in neighboring Mali, which lost half its territory to Islamic extremists in 2012, prompting a regional and international intervention to free the towns.
He has also mediated between Tuareg separatists and the Malian government in Bamako.
Opposition critics argue that the price of peace has been authoritarian rule and have decided to boycott a vote that they regard as an “electoral sham”.
The opposition parties have never accepted Abdel Aziz’s 2009 victory in an election they said was marred by “fraud”. The ruling Union for the Republic (UPR) won a large majority in parliamentary and local elections last year, which were also boycotted by the opposition.
Source: AFP