What’s at stake in Mauritania’s presidential election?

After decades of coups and military rule, the country’s young democracy will be tested in the June 29 vote.

Voters will head to polling booths across Mauritania on June 29, in elections set to be a litmus test for the northeast African country’s young and fragile democracy.

A vast but sparsely populated desert country with some 4.5 million people, Mauritania has long been beset by coups and military rule. The country has been under military dictatorship for nearly all of its 64 years since gaining independence from France in 1960. Its first peaceful power transfer came in 2019, when then-incumbent President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz chose not to run for a third term.

The country is surrounded by neighbours battling armed violence involving a range of groups, and analysts say Mauritania faces the risk of that lack of security spilling over into its territory.

Mauritania also has a legacy of racial discrimination that is still alive: Mauritania was the last country to abolish slavery in 1981, and crackdowns on activists from the Black Mauritanian population have led to tensions in recent months. Racial disparities also show up in access to education, health and land.

Some two million people are eligible to vote on Saturday. Here’s all you need to know about the coming polls:

There are seven candidates for the presidency.

Other candidates include:

The incumbent president’s supporters claim he has significantly distanced the government from the military, and has built a more inclusive government than his predecessors. Ghazouani appointed Prime Minister Mohamed Ould Bilal, who is Black, and a few other top cabinet members from historically disadvantaged non-Arab communities like Afro-Mauritanians.

“Ghazouani represents the old guard, for a lot of people, and for those who were looking for complete change, they just haven’t seen that,” Eizenga said. “Many people are saying ‘Oh those military people, they don’t like to leave power,’ and that’s because he is still very much seen as being part of the military.”

Afro-Mauritanians who mostly speak Fula, Soninke and Wolof, have also criticised the president for a 2022 policy that mandated the use of the Arabic language in primary schools. The policy introduced local languages at the primary level for the first time, but it also specified that Arabic be taught to non-Arab children, a move many saw as an imposition. Currently, Arabic is the official language, and French is widely spoken.

In 2023, the death of an Afro-Mauritanian man, Oumar Diop, and a Black activist, Soufi Ould Cheine, in police custody led to protests. Those demonstrations were met with violent force from the police.

Corruption, too, remains a challenge. Critics say while Ghazouani prosecuted his predecessor, he has largely used new anticorruption laws and institutions to target opposition and critics.

After years of political upheavals, the elections commission was reformed in 2022, under Ghazouani’s government. However, in legislative elections to the 176-member National Assembly held in May 2023, many analysts alleged irregularities in the vote, and the opposition claimed there was “massive fraud”.

Who is running?

The ruling El Insaf won a landslide, clinching 107 seats, while Tawassoul, the major opposition, won 11 seats. The African Union deemed the vote credible.

The US, in a statement on Thursday, revealed that it provided financial aid to the CENI to help strengthen its processes. US officials, alongside delegates from the AU, are also expected to observe the elections in polling booths throughout the country.

“That’s not very likely but I still don’t think we can completely rule it out,” Eizenga said.

Violence has not been a major issue in past elections – although experts say that could be because there was never a real belief that opposition members could have any real chance at winning the ballot. Still, the elections on Saturday are expected to be largely peaceful.

Because of its political history, the fact that campaigns are being held and that people are prepared to vote is in itself a win for Mauritania, analysts say, as the country’s institutions strengthen ahead of elections in 2029 when Ghazouani – if he is in office – would be ineligible to run, necessitating a power transfer.