Military leader salutes democracy on rural tour

Regional politicians, tribal chiefs, and local residents flocked to catch a glimpse of Mauritania’s newly self-installed military leader Ely Ould Mohamed Vall during a nationwide roadtrip, but not quite everyone liked what they saw. Democracy was top of the agenda during Vall’s first official jaunt around the vast and sparsely populated country that straddles Africa’s Sahara desert since he seized power in a coup last August. The military strongman has repeatedly promised he will give up the top spot in West Africa’s only Islamic Republic after overseeing elections in March 2007. And furthermore, he’s not putting his name down as a candidate in the poll either. “In this country the traditional form of politics is by a single party, with monolithic rule and hereditary succession,” Vall said at a rally in the south eastern town Nema last week. Vall staged Mauritania’s third successful coup toppling former boss, President Maaouya Ould Taya who had held the top job since staging his own coup d’etat in 1984. Though Ould Taya ushered in elections, international observers noted widespread flaws and human rights groups accused his regime of persecuting political opponents. But Vall told villagers he wants to break the coup-cycle and has proposed constitutional changes that he said will “eliminate the factors that usually lead to coup d’etats and civil wars”. Those changes will only be implemented if approved at a national referendum later in the year. If approved, Vall will slash presidential mandates to five years, bar heads of state from sitting for more than two terms, and block any further changes to the constitution. The 56 year-old former security chief has laid out an election calendar that slates the constitutional referendum for 25 June, municipal and legislative elections in November, and senatorial and presidential elections by March next year. In his public appearances Vall, described by one observer as a “slightly stiff” but “very engaging” orator, spoke to packed crowds about the need to “stop the prolonging of power” in Mauritania, and reiterated his promises to cede power. “The conditions everywhere are ripening. The Mauritanian people are being rehabilitated and their mentality is being retrained,” he said to applause. Vall assured listeners that no particular group of people will be targeted for “rehabilitation”, because “this type of mentality prevails at every level of the entire society”.

Vall supporters in Nema

Some locals who turned out to hear the president’s message waved portraits of him and recited poetry, much as they did when news broke in late August that Vall had ousted Ould Taya while on a state visit to the Middle East. “We think that the transition period is not sufficient for the military committee, and not sufficient to see real change while we see that with this man there are real changes,” a jubilant Vall supporter in Nema, a remote town 200 kilometres from Mauritania’s eastern border with Mali and Senegal, told IRIN. Many of Mauritania’s 3 million citizens are traditionally nomadic but have been flooding into towns as drought and desertification ravage the old ways of life. More than half of Mauritanians still depend on breeding cattle and growing cereals and vegetables for their survival, but an oil find that started pumping in February has raised hopes of an economic renewal. Accompanying Vall on his tour, which swept east to west across the country, was a gaggle of ministers and technical directors more often seen in Nouakchott’s corridors of power than the dusty streets of its provincial towns. “This visit is important to us because we think this government will play a beneficial role that will allow Mauritania to change its face and comportment,” said Saleh Ould Hanena, an ex military commandant who led a failed coup in June 2003, and who met Vall in Ayoun El Atous, a regional capital 800 kilometres east of Nouakchott. An interior ministry communique that laid down the groundrules for Vall’s roadtrip said the tour would only be allowed if it did not use any state resources. To comply Vall and his delegation travelled in their own cars, dressed in casual clothes, and worked regular office hours, a statement said. Still, not all observers were enraptured with the presidential tour. “Different time, same morals”, wrote journalist Hindou Mint Ainina in a critical editorial in the daily newspaper Calame last week.