Mauritanians vote in poll to restore civilian rule
By Pascal Fletcher Sun Mar 11, 4:31 AM ET
NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - Mauritanians began voting on Sunday to choose a president and restore civilian rule to the Saharan Islamic state after 19 months under a military junta.
Voters and international observers hope the poll can establish a multi-party democracy in the largely desert former French colony, which has experienced several coups and years of authoritarian rule since its independence in 1960.
As polling stations opened, men in flowing robes and turbans and women in colorful veils formed queues and squatted patiently on the sandy streets waiting to vote.
"We've never had an election like this before ... we hope it will change a lot in the country, God willing," said Ahmed Ould Brahim, 46, an unemployed mason. "We want more education and work, less corruption and tribalism."
Just over 1 million voters across the country, which is twice the size of France and straddles Arab and black Africa, are being asked to choose between 19 candidates.
The election, following multi-party legislative polls late last year, will be the first time power has changed hands freely via the ballot box in this largely desert former French colony.
Candidates include a veteran opposition figure, a former military ruler, an ex-central bank governor and a descendant of black slaves in the racially diverse nation, which has traditionally been ruled by a white Moorish elite.
If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the total votes in the first round, a second round will be held on March 25.
Col. Ely Ould Mohamed Vall and members of his junta, whose bloodless coup in 2005 ended more than two decades of rule by President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, barred themselves from standing and have vowed to respect the new head of state.
They organized a referendum reforming the constitution in June to limit a president's period in office.
RACIAL GRIEVANCES
Many voters said they want the new president to ensure wealth from the country's natural resources are distributed more fairly and to end inequality among the mixed 3 million population of white and black Moors and black Africans.
"We have everything in our country, fisheries, oil, mining. What we want is good government," said Diatahir Mamadou, 47, an unemployed driver who lives in Nouakchott's sprawling Keube shantytown, mostly inhabited by black Mauritanians.
"And we want no more racism," Mamadou said, expressing the feelings of black Mauritanians who say they have suffered discrimination and slavery under a centuries-old caste system that kept the white Moorish elite in power.
Slavery was outlawed in 1981 but rights groups say it continues in some areas.
International observers say Sunday's poll could be the freest and most open ever held in Mauritania, in contrast to the past when a single leader and party kept a tight grip on power.
"This can be a model of democracy to follow in Africa and the Arab world," said Marie Anne Isler Beguin, chief of the
European Union observer mission.
But some voters said they did not know who to vote for.
"They all make promises and then do nothing. I don't know who to trust, black or white. Only God knows," said Zeinabou Sey, sitting with her children in a ramshackle hut as dust swept by from the Sahara, where most of the population live as nomads.