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The elections were the first since 2019 when President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani came to power. The ruling party in Mauritania scored a comfortable victory in last week’s legislative and local elections. This was a litmus test for the veteran head of state ahead of next year’s presidential poll. The elections were the first since 2019 when President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani came to power.
The elections were the first since 2019 when President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani came to power. The ruling party in Mauritania scored a comfortable victory in last week’s legislative and local elections. This was a litmus test for the veteran head of state ahead of next year’s presidential poll. The elections were the first since 2019 when President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani came to power.
The president has overseen the West African country’s relative stability in the increasingly violent Sahel region. He is widely expected to seek re-election in 2024, although he has not confirmed his plans. Ghazouani’s El Insaf party was the favorite to win among the 25 parties vying for the backing of the country’s 1.8 million voters.
El Insaf took 80 of the 176 seats in parliament. Thirty-six other seats went to parties allied with the president and 24 to the opposition, nine of them to the Islamist Tewassoul movement. Tewassoul — which is seeking a strict application of Islamic law — was the main opposition group in the outgoing parliament, in which El Insaf had a comfortable majority. There will be a run-off vote on May 27 for the remaining 36 parliamentary seats.
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El Insaf won all 13 regional councils and 165 of the 238 local constituencies up for grabs. The opposition has complained of “massive fraud” in the elections, which saw an official turnout of 71.8 percent. Ghazouani, 66, is a general considered one of the main architects of Mauritania’s success against jihadism, in his former role as army chief. His party was the only one to field candidates in all constituencies in this month’s parliamentary and local polls.
