Democracy News

Head of Electoral Commission in Mauritania Resigns following Presidential Elections
By Keona Padgett
July 28, 2009 | Printer Friendly

The BBC reports that the head of Mauritania’s electoral commission, Sid’Ahmed Ould Deye, has resigned because of his doubts about the July 19 election in which the leader of the August 2008 coup was declared the winner.  Retired general Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who led the coup that deposed Mauritania’s first freely-elected president, avoided a runoff by obtaining 52 percent of the vote, while his opponents called his election a “fraudulent ‘electoral coup.’”  Deye explained that he had resigned “as a matter of ‘conscience’” and said that “‘the complaints I received, as well as the contents of the challenges sent to the Constitutional Court, have sown doubts in my mind over the reliability of the election.’”

According to Boubacar Ould Messaoud, leader of an antislavery organization in Mauritania, “‘we’ve gone backward to an era of dictatorship…Aziz is no democrat.  He is a soldier, and like all soldiers, he should stay in his barracks.  There will be no difference between this regime and the junta.’”  The Associated Press writes that Aziz sees himself as “a defender of democracy who staged a coup only to prevent the country from reverting to a past epoch of repressive rule.”

The next closest candidate was the speaker of Parliament, Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, who received only 16 percent of the vote.  According to the AP, the main opposition candidates rejected the results of the election before they were announced, saying that “the count had been ‘prefabricated.’”  Boulkheir has called on the international community to create a commission to investigate the election results. 

Aziz has denied claims of fraud and said that the vote “could not have been rigged, because results from each polling station had to be approved and signed by rival parties” before they were sent to the electoral commission’s headquarters.  Furthermore, the AP notes that several hundred international observers monitored the vote.  After the election, three of the opposition candidates filed complaints with the court, but the court confirmed the results of the election shortly after Deye’s resignation.  “It dismissed the opposition’s claims of fraud due to lack of evidence, and said the elections had been ‘clean and transparent.’”  The BBC also notes that overseas observers have praised the election but do admit that the challenges from the opposition should be investigated.  According to Voice of America, the African Union and Arab League have said the vote was fair, and France said there were no major anomalies in the election.

References:

Associated Press: Coup Leader Wins Election Amid Outcry in Mauritania (Published at www.nytimes.com)

BBC: Mauritania Election Chief Quits

VOA News: Chief of Mauritanian Electoral Commission Resigns