POLITICAL NEWS: MAURITANIA'S PRESIDENT GHAZOUANI WINS RE-ELECTION

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Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, the current president of Mauritania, easily won reelection with 56.12% of the vote, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) announced on Monday.

With the win, the former army chief will serve a second term as leader of the huge desert nation, which is expected to start producing gas and is viewed as a pillar of security in the unstable Sahel region of Africa.

If Ghazouani hadn’t received more than half the votes in Saturday’s poll, there would have been a runoff. As it happened, CENI president Dah Ould Abdel Jelil declared the results, showing that he finished far ahead of his biggest opponent, anti-slavery campaigner Biram Dah Abeid, who received 22.10 percent.

Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, the current president of Mauritania, easily won reelection with 56.12% of the vote, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) announced on Monday.

“We did everything we could to prepare the conditions for a good election and we were relatively successful,” said the head of the electoral commission.

Ghazouani assumed office in 2019 following an election, the first between two elected presidents since France’s independence in 1960 and a string of coups from 1978 to 2008.

Although there have been several military takeovers in the Sahel recently and jihadist activity has increased, especially in Mali, Mauritania has not had an attack since 2011.

Most people believe that Ghazouani, 67, is the brains behind the West African state’s seeming security.

The total turnout for Saturday’s presidential election was 55.39 percent, which was less than in 2019.

The results, which provided a preview of the verdict, had been trickling in since Saturday night and were regularly posted on an official web portal.

“We will only recognise our own results, and therefore we will take to the streets” to refuse the electoral commission count, opponent Abeid said.

Some of his supporters demonstrated in the capital Nouakchott late Sunday, burning tyres and disrupting traffic.

At the end of the afternoon, Abeid’s campaign headquarters were surrounded by security forces, according to an AFP journalist. His campaign manager was arrested, a spokesman said.

The police presence in the capital increased significantly later in the evening.

Islamist candidate El Moctar said Saturday that he would “remain attentive” to any breach of voting regulations while calling on his supporters to steer clear of anything that could create public disorder.

Ghazouani has made helping the young a key priority in a country of 4.9 million people, where almost three-quarters are aged under 35.

After a first term hit by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the incumbent says he hopes to make more reforms thanks to a favourable economic outlook.

Growth should average 4.9 percent (3.1 percent per capita) for the period 2024-2026, according to the World Bank, spurred by the launch of gas production in the second half of this year.

Inflation has fallen from a peak of 9.5 percent in 2022 to 5 percent in 2023 and should continue to slow to 2.5 percent in 2024.