May 22. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The government party in Mauritania, El Insaf, has won the legislative and local elections held last week in the African country, according to official results, which give it an absolute majority in the event that it establishes its ties with several parties allied to the president, Mohamed Ould Ghazuani.
The electoral commission has specified that El Insaf has taken over 80 of the 176 seats in Parliament, while its allies have obtained another 36 seats, out of the 24 obtained by the opposition, including nine in the hands of the Islamist party Tauasul, according to the Mauritanian news portal Arriyada.
On the other hand, there will be a second round to determine the remaining 36 seats, amid complaints from the opposition for alleged irregularities to tip the balance in favor of the president’s party in the elections, the first since Ould Ghazuani came to power in 2019. .
Insaf has also won victory in all the regional councils and in more than half of the local councils, within the framework of what the opposition parties have described as an “electoral circus”, according to the Mauritanian newspaper ‘L ‘Authentic’.
Thus, the coalition of opposition parties announced on Friday that it is calling for mobilizations for this Thursday, May 25, with the aim of protesting against the official results, while warning that the situation could become “a multidimensional political crisis.”
In contrast, the president of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), Dah Uld Abdelyelil, stressed that the vote took place “in calm and discipline.” “This shows political maturity and attachment to democracy,” he maintained, as reported by the Mauritanian state news agency, AMI.
“I thank the political actors, candidates and voters in their entirety for the understanding and patience with which they have waited for the recount and the proclamation of the results of the scrutiny,” he said, before asserting that the body has worked to organize some elections “without incident, despite the enormous difficulties”.
Along these lines, he has praised an “unprecedented participation”, with a participation rate of 71.8 percent, and has thanked “the civil and military authorities for having guaranteed the security of electoral operations throughout the territory national”, as well as national and international observers and the media.
Uld Ghazuani, 66, has not yet clarified whether he will stand for re-election in the presidential elections scheduled for 2024, after coming to power in 2019 in elections that he participated in with the support of the outgoing president, Mohamed Uld Abdelaziz, of whom he has been estranged ever since.
In fact, Uld Abdelaziz — who became President of Mauritania after winning the 2009 elections — a year after leading a coup and presiding over the High Council of State during a transition period — has been highly critical of his ‘dolphin’ for the process opened against him on corruption charges, which he rejects and describes as politically motivated.
