Mauritania Launches Presidential Race

BY SHEIKH BEKAYE -The Associated Press

Wednesday, October 22, 2003; 7:42 PM

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania – The Arab –dominated West African nation of Mauritania opened its first real presidential campaign in more than a decade Wednesday, with the grandson of black African slaves of the Arabs among five opposition candidates competing

The Nov.7 vote will mark the first real elections for the presidency in this U.S allied nation straddling Arab and black Africa since 1992, when incumbent President Maaouya Sid’Ahmed Ould Taya won a vote condemned by the opposition as fraudulent

Ould Taya –target of a foiled June coup attempt blamed by some on a growing Islamic movement here- has led Mauritania, at times brutally, since seizing power in a 1984 coup.

A nation with an Arab majority and black African minority, Mauritania under Taya, an Arab, has turned from its Gulf War –era support for Saddam Hussein and moved increasingly toward the West

Light-skinned Arabs and Berbers make up more than half of this sahara desert nation’s 2.6 million people. Black and mixed-race people have traditionally occupied the lowest castes of society

Since the early 1990s, it has become allies with the United States, and stands as one of only three Arab League nations to recognize Israel

Competitors include Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, whose family labored as slaves before Mauritania officially banned slavery in 1981

Ould Boulkheir sought Wednesday to reach out to the country’s light-skinned Arab Berbers as well, declaring : ”I am Arab.”

“Many present me as an insurgent slave who wants to harm other Mauritania Arab, “he said.” That is not me.”

In a country with a coup-riddled early history, Ould Taya’s toughest competitors include former military dictator   Mohamed khouna Ould Haidalla, who took power in 1979, only to be overthrowen by Ould Taya five years later

Ould Taya also faces Ahmed Ould Daddah, the brother of Mauritania’s first post-independence leader, Mokhtar Ould Daddah

Ould Daddah, Mairitania’s president after independence from France in 1960, was  ousted in a 1978 coup

The top three opposition candidates have pledged to support the top finisher among them in any runoff against Ould Taya – countering Ould Taya’s advantage against a split field

The November vote marks the return of presidential campaigning by opposition parties

Mauritania grew increasingly tense this year as the government cracked down on a banned political movement linked to Saddam’s Baath party in the run-up to the U.S .-led war in Iraq

Authorities arrested dozens of Islamic leaders for allegedly using mosques to recruit fighters for the war in Iraq

On June 8, gunbattles broke in the capital, Nouakchott, as loyalists put down what the government called an attempt by a small cabal of mid-level officers trying to depose Ould Taya

http//www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articules/A2348-2003 oct22.html