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Mauritania votes in runoff for civilian president
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Mauritania votes in runoff for civilian president
Mauritanians voted on Saturday in a presidential runoff between a former technocrat and a veteran opposition leader, the last stage of returning civilian rule to the Islamic state bordering the Sahara. The vote follows an inconclusive first round poll two weeks ago and seals a democratic handover by the army junta which seized control of the former French colony in a bloodless 2005 coup, the third military putsch since independence in 1960.
Candidates Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi and Ahmed Ould Daddah have both promised to consolidate democracy and reforms in the country whose largely nomadic population is a complex mix of Arabs and Africans and where slavery persists.
Mauritania, despite rich fisheries, minerals and oil, still suffers from widespread poverty, underdevelopment and simmering racial tensions.
Foreign observers hail the ballot box handover of power as a rare case of a coup that helped, not hindered, democracy. ?People in Mauritania are proud of this election. I think it has great significance, both for Africa and for the Arab world,? said US ambassador Charles H. Twining.
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