Huge turnout expected in Mauritania's key elections (Roundup)

Nov 19, 2006, 20:03 GMT

Nouakchott - Mauritania's national electoral commission announced Sunday that voting time was being extended in historic parliamentary and municipal elections which appeared to be the north-west African country's first ever democratic poll.

Just 20 minutes before polling stations were due to close, long queues were still forming in front of them in the capital Nouakchott. The commission said stations would remain open as long as people were coming to cast their ballots.

The ruling military junta had promised transparent elections to usher in a democratic era after toppling President Maaouya Ould Taya, a de-facto one-party ruler for 21 years, in a bloodless coup in August 2005.

More than a million people were eligible to elect the 95-strong parliament and members of 216 municipal councils in the Islamic republic of 3 million, a former French colony.

Some Mauritanians had feared that the junta would try to influence the outcome of the elections in the country which has a history of military coups and where power has never changed hands through the ballot box.

But observers from the European Union, Arab League, African Union and French-speaking countries told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that they had not noticed significant irregularities.

'Everything is proceeding normally,' opposition leader Messaoud Ould Boulkheir concurred.

About 500 observers were supervising the elections, including 200 observers representing international organizations.

Definitive election results were not expected until Tuesday. In constituencies where no party gets an absolute majority, a second round will be held on December 3.

'This is a historic opportunity for Mauritanians and for democracy in Mauritania,' junta leader Ely Ould Mohammed Vall said after casting his vote.

Members of the junta or of the transitional civilian government were not candidates.

'I came because I believe things will change for Mauritanians,' said housewife Lalla Fall, who voted in Nouakchott.

'We trust that the military will keep their promises,' agreed Sidaty Ould Mahmoud, a phone card seller, but a man named Hamza Ould Demba was skeptical.

'Since many of the candidates are the same that have been around for the past two decades, I don't expect things to change even if the poll is democratic,' he said.

More than 25 political parties representing a wide spectrum of views as well as numerous independent candidates were contesting the elections.

The main parties included the Rally of Democratic Forces (RFD) of moderate technocrat and veteran opposition leader Ahmed Ould Daddah and the Republican Party for Democracy and Renewal (PRDR), which is Ould Taya's former party.

The Popular Alliance for Progress (APP) is headed by Ould Boulkheir, a former slave and champion of slave descendants known as Haratins or 'black Moors' in the country where they feel discriminated against by the mostly light-skinned Arab-Berber 'white Moors.'

Campaign themes have included slavery, with many parties saying that Mauritania must eliminate all vestiges of the practice, which was abolished officially in 1981.

Novelties included moderate Islamists, who had been barred from elections until now.

The regime still did not allow them to have their own party, arguing that no group could act as the sole representative of Islam. The Islamists were running as independent candidates or as members of other parties.

Mauritania is one of the few Arabic countries to have established diplomatic relations with Israel. It has also cooperated in the US war against terrorism, and about 20 Islamic radicals are currently in prison.

One party, the Union for Democracy and Progress (UDP), is headed by a woman, Naha Mint Mouknass. The parliament and municipal councils will have at least 20 per cent of female members in line with a new law to abolish 'ancient habits of women being dominated by men,' Ould Vall said.

Political parties had to give women prominent places on their lists or risk not being able to participate in the elections.

The 20 per cent quota was 'a rare initiative in an Arab-Muslim country,' female lawyer Jemina Mint Ichidou said.

The parliamentary and municipal elections were the second in a string of polls aimed at launching a democratic era.

They were preceded by a referendum in June which overwhelmingly approved a new constitution limiting the president's mandate to a maximum of two five-year terms.

A vote for the senate will take place in January, and the democratization process will by wrapped up by presidential elections in March 2007.

The newly-elected authorities will be expected to continue forging a democratic Mauritania after a long period of practices such as press censorship, jailing opponents and cronyism under Ould Taya.

The new authorities will also have an opportunity to relieve the poverty of the desert country, if it manages the new oil wealth wisely. Mauritania is one of Africa's upcoming oil producers, where an Australian-led consortium started extracting oil this year.