Mauritania

Country in northwest Africa, bounded northeast by Algeria, east and south by Mali, southwest by Senegal, west by the Atlantic Ocean, and northwest by Western Sahara.

Government

The 1991 constitution provides for a two-chamber legislature, comprising an 81-member national assembly, elected by universal suffrage for a five-year term, and a 56-member senate, indirectly elected by municipal leaders for a six-year term. Since the 2005 military coup, the chairman of the military council holds power, as head of state and government.

History

Mauritania was the name of the Roman province of northwest Africa, after the Mauri, a Berber people who inhabited it. Berbers occupied the region during the 1st–3rd centuries AD, and it came under the control of the Ghana Empire (see Ghana, ancient) in the 7th–11th centuries. The Berbers were converted to Islam from the 8th century, and Islamic influence continued to dominate as the area was controlled by the Almoravids and then the Arabs. French influence began in the 17th century, with the trade in gum arabic, and developed into colonization by the mid-18th century, when France gained control of southern Mauritania.

Independence

In 1920 Mauritania became a French colony as part of French West Africa. It achieved internal self-government within the French Community in 1958. It gained full independence in 1960. A new capital, Nouakchott, was founded on the site of a small colonial village, Ksar, but nine-tenths of the population were still nomadic. Moktar Ould Daddah, leader of the Mauritanian People's Party (PPM), became president in 1961. He considered the country unready for Western-style multiparty democracy and turned the country into an authoritarian one-party state, from 1964.

Western Sahara conflict leads to overthrow of Daddah

In 1975 Spain ceded Western Sahara to Mauritania and Morocco, leaving them to decide how to share it. Without consulting the Saharan people, Mauritania annexed and occupied the south in 1976, leaving the north to Morocco. A Sahrawi guerrilla resistance movement developed against this occupation, the Popular Front for Liberation, or the Polisario Front, with Algerian backing, and Mauritania and Morocco found themselves engaged in a guerrilla war, forcing the two former rivals into a mutual defence pact. The conflict weakened Mauritania's economy, and in July 1978 President Daddah was deposed in a bloodless military coup. Daddah went into exile in France. The new government agreed peace with the Polisario. Mauritania recognized the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as the legitimate government of Western Sahara, from which it withdrew in 1979. This enabled diplomatic relations with Algeria to be restored, but led to a deterioration in relations with Morocco.

PPM banned

Col Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla, as chair of the military council, ruled the country from 1978, banned the only political party, the PPM, and became increasingly autocratic. However, he faced opposition from exiled supporters of the PPM, who operate from Paris through the Alliance for a Democratic Mauritania, and from Dakar, in Senegal, through the Organization of Nationalist Mauritanians.

Taya takes over in military coup

Col Haidalla's close relations to the Sahrawis of Polisario caused discontent in the army and in December 1984, when he was attending a Franco-African summit meeting in Burundi, Col Moaouia Ould Sidi Muhammad Taya, a former prime minister, led a bloodless coup to overthrow him. Diplomatic relations with Morocco had been broken in 1981 and the situation worsened in 1984 when Mauritania formally recognized the Polisario regime in Western Sahara. Normal relations were restored in 1985. During 1989 there were a number of clashes with Senegalese in border areas resulting in the death of at least 450 people. The presidents of the two countries met to try to resolve their differences. Citizens of each country were forced to return to their native country, with nearly 50,000 people repatriating by June. In 1991 there were calls for the resignation of President Taya, despite a promise of multiparty elections, and an amnesty granted to political prisoners.

Multiparty system approved

Voters approved a new constitution in August 1991 that increased political freedom, and opposition parties were legalized. Taya formed the Democratic and Social Republican Party (PRDS) as his main political vehicle. The first multiparty elections for the presidency were held in January 1992 and for the assembly in March 1992. Alleging ballot rigging, the opposition parties boycotted the March 1992 elections, allowing the ruling PRDS a clear win. In April 1992 diplomatic relations with Senegal, severed in 1989, were restored. A report by the US-based group, Human Rights Watch–Africa, published in 1994, accused the government of sanctioning slavery and torture of its black citizens. In January 1996 Cheik el Avia Ould Muhammad Khouna was appointed prime minister.

Mauritania's incumbent president, Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya, was declared the overwhelming victor after elections in mid-December 1997. The elections were boycotted by opposition groups. Taya, who took power in a 1984 military coup and legalized opposition parties in 1991, captured 90% of the vote.

In April 2001, Chbih Ould Cheikh Malainine, leader of the opposition Front Populaire (FP; Popular Front), was arrested and sentenced to five years imprisonment. He was accused of planning, with Libyan support, a military coup against the government.

Taya ousted

Taya was re-elected in November 2003, although opposition parties alleged electoral fraud. However, he was overthrown in a military coup in August 2005, while he was out of the country for the funeral of the king of Saudi Arabia. The army officers responsible for the coup formed a military council, headed by Ely Ould Mohammed Vall.

Mauritania (redirected from Muritaniyah)