Sahel Edition

Mauritania: Ruling party wins legislative and local elections, opposition claims “massive fraud”F

Posted On 23 May 2023

Number of times this article was read : 894

Mauritania Elections
By Hademine Ould Sadi:

The ruling party in Mauritania scored a comfortable victory in last week’s legislative and local elections, according to official results on Sunday, 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. He has overseen the West African country’s relative stability in the increasingly violent Sahel region and is widely expected to seek re-election in 2024, although he has not confirmed his plans.

Ghazouani’s El Insaf party was the favourite 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, announced the head of the independent electoral commission (CENI), Dah Abdel Jelil. Thirty-six other seats went to parties allied to 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. 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. This was forecast to give him a boost in next year’s presidential ballot, in particular with the vast, arid country’s rural electorate.

AFP

More on the Sahel

Mali: Bamako Under Siege$

Bamako is facing mounting pressure as jihadist group JNIM expands its campaign beyond military operations and increasingly targets the economic lifelines connecting Mali’s capital to the rest of West Africa. Attacks on highways, freight traffic, and commercial transport corridors have disrupted trade, affected regional commerce, and raised concerns about the government’s ability to maintain security and economic stability.

German Think Tank Accuses the UAE of Destabilizing Africa$

A report published by Germany’s Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik accuses the United Arab Emirates of playing a destabilizing role in several African conflicts through support for armed groups, logistical networks, and regional interventions. The report focuses particularly on Sudan, Libya, the Horn of Africa, and Yemen, while also criticizing Western governments for avoiding direct public criticism of Abu Dhabi.

Mali: After Kidal, The War Comes to Bamako$

Mali’s military government lost Kidal to a joint FLA-JNIM offensive on April 26, 2026, after Russian Africa Corps personnel and Malian troops withdrew under rebel escort. The fall of the city, retaken by Bamako with Russian support in November 2023, exposes the limits of the junta’s sovereignty narrative and raises serious questions about the durability of Mali’s security model.