According to the latest issue of Mauritania magazine1, the successor of President Mohamed Abdel Aziz is known.
It is the general of division Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, “craftsman of the transformation and the modernization of the military institution in Mauritania”. Originally from eastern Mauritania and from a maraboutic lineage, this popular character is “known for his discretion and loyalty to the leader,” the newspaper said.
If this prognosis proved, “Ould Ghazouani will be anything but a Medvedev,” she murmurs. “Mauritania will actually alternate with, it must be said, an army that watches over grain. Without erecting this probable succession in absolute certainty, the political and general information monthly recalls the names of other contenders for the supreme seat, including Sheikh Ould Baya, current mayor of the mining town of Zouerat. Reputed close to President Aziz, this retired colonel, who often hosted the Rais on his ranch, would not have all the green lights required.
Outside the army, the opposition, grouped in the National Front for Democracy and Unity (FNDU), resolved not without reservations, to participate in the vote. Without much illusions as the games seem made in advance. “Time has taken the heat of some of these high figures of the opposition, both in terms of the age limit, inscribed in the constitution, and the morale of traditional and historical activists who do not believe more “. Time was mostly right of the Mauritanian left, symbolized by the Union of Progressive Forces (UFP), reduced, by force can be boycott, in a party that weighs less than the Islamists of Tawassoul. Perhaps, it should be seen here the slide of Mauritanian society, leftist in the 70s and ultra-conservative and Islamist since the 2000s.
Faced with this nebula of uncertainties, it is not the so-called Negro-African parties, in a situation of advanced coma, which will be successful. Fragmented in multiple irreducible chieftaincies, these small groups who defend a cause yet popular (cohabitation) , humanitarian liabilities), are no longer interlocutors in the face of a power that has the balance of power with it. Until then seen as the only anti-system party, able to put his grain of sand in the team of inheritance, the anti-slavery movement IRA of Birame Ould Abeid seems to have been made hara kiri by making public his alliance with the Sawab party of Baathist obedience, defender of the thesis of an exclusively Arab Mauritania.
Apart from the president and his radical opposition, another path of succession is still possible. The businessman and opponent Mohamed Ould Bouamatou, will not be a candidate but may well cause vocations.
Clearly, the legal impossibility of the current president to align with the starting line of the candidates, because of the constitutional provisions, limiting to two (2) the mandates of the President of the Republic, is a big surprise in a country of 3.5 million souls (including 1 million cardholders activist Union for the Republic (UPR, ruling party), which has never experienced a real democratic alternation.
If he multiplies promises not to represent himself, President Aziz continues to tolerate, however, some statements to say the least ambiguous. Thus, at a press conference on April 28, the leader of the UPR said: “the problem of the candidacy of President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz for a third term does not arise, from a constitutional point of view, but if a majority demands it, you must respect your point of view. Calling a third principal is not a crime. MPs who make this claim are protected by law. Mauritania as a whole is attached to the person of President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz “.
A speech that did not have all the echo it would have deserved in the political class and in the columns of public and private media.
