Mauritania's presidential elections, while inconclusive yet, show that the country is moving positively towards political democracy, writes James Martin in Nouakchott Last Sunday, Mauritanians flooded to polling booths to vote in their country's first free presidential elections since independence from France in 1960. Coming on the heels of legislative elections in February and in November and December of last year, Sunday's elections marked the final step of the country's official transition to democratic rule. Preliminary results of the elections, released Monday morning, place Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, an independent candidate, as the front-runner, winning 25 per cent of ballots cast, with Ahmed Ould Daddah of the Rally of Democratic Forces (RFD) Party at a close second with 24 per cent. Zeine Ould Zeidane, also an independent, came in at a distant third with 14 per cent. Since neither top candidate won more than 50 per cent of the vote, the official winner will be decided in a run-off election scheduled for 25 March. The new president will replace Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, a military official who seized power from ruler Maaouya Ould Said Ahmed Taya in August 2005 in a bloodless military coup. Despite the divided nature of the results, elections day in Mauritania passed without major incidents, with voters turning out in high numbers throughout the desert country to participate in its first experiment in open democracy. As far north as Zouérate, a mining town near Mauritania's border with Western Sahara, citizens were seen lining up at polling stations before their official opening at 7am. High turnout continued throughout the day, dropping only slightly in hot midday hours and at prayer time. Despite Mauritania's history of fraudulent presidential elections under the rule of Taya, the results of Sunday's poll are considered legitimate by international standards. On Monday morning, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs at the US State Department, declared the election process "credible" at a press conference in Nouakchott, the nation's capital. Helping to guarantee the fairness of the process were teams of election monitors from the United States, the European Union, the African Union, and the Arab League. American Ambassador Charles Twining thanked 15 students from Yale University for helping to monitor the elections. Due to the largely inconclusive results of last fall's National Assembly elections, many see Mauritania's presidential elections as decisive in determining the future political landscape of the country. While the Coalition of Forces for Democratic Change (CFCD) -- a grouping of 11 opposition political parties of which Daddah's RFD is part -- secured the most seats of any party in the Assembly, it failed to achieve a majority, with independent candidates taking most of the body's remaining slots. After the election, some parties in the CFCD complained that military and political elites had provided support to certain independent candidates in order to deflect votes from the opposition. Abdallahi, the primary independent candidate and recipient of the most votes in Sunday's election, has similarly been accused of ties to the military, although these claims are difficult to confirm. Vall himself refused to run in the elections, publicly repeating promises he made after the 2005 coup to step down from power this year. The elections have also seen the return to prominence of Islamist political figures who had hitherto been banned from political participation since Mauritania's independence from France. While allowed to run as independent candidates, Islamists are still prohibited from establishing political parties. Among the challenges the new president will face are how to maintain close ties to the US and Israel without alienating other Arab states in the region and further inflaming the ire of Islamist groups at home. Since Taya agreed to establish formal diplomatic ties with Israel in 1999, Mauritania's relationship with some Arab countries -- Libya in particular -- has soured. And given vocal demands within Mauritania for a re- evaluation of its policy on Israel, the future of the country's relationship with Tel Aviv remains uncertain. Mauritania's incoming president will also be faced with the task of improving strained relations among the country's different racial and ethnic groups. While Mauritanian politics are dominated by a minority of the so-called "white" Moor elites of Arab and Berber descent, the country has large populations of "black" Moors, said to be the descendants of slaves, and black Africans who are linguistically and culturally close to Malians and Senegalese. Reports of discrimination abound, particularly against black Africans, and the history of slavery in Mauritania, outlawed only in 1981, still haunts society today. Surprisingly, however, Ibrahim Moctar Sarr, a black African candidate, received nine per cent of Sunday's vote, coming in fourth place behind Zeidane. Some also remarked that given that Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, the only black Moor candidate and head of the Popular Progressive Alliance (APP), received support throughout the country bodes well for future race relations in Mauritania. On the economic side, Mauritania's discovery of offshore oil reserves in 2005, with the start of production last year, will likely boost GDP for the coming years and encourage foreign investment. Also promising is China National Petroleum Corporation's recent announcement that it has discovered natural gas reserves within the country. Nevertheless, uncertainty remains in the minds of some Mauritanians about the future as they are unsure what to expect from the new president, whoever it is to be, or whether his government will represent real democratic change for the country. As one Mauritanian woman remarked, "It depends on the actions of the president whether Mauritania will be a real democracy. It depends on how he applies democracy to solve the problems of Mauritania." She added: "It's better to have the liberty to choose a leader even if he can't solve all the problems. If he can't, we'll look for a new one." Overall, it was optimism that prevailed as polling stations closed at 7pm throughout the country Sunday evening. In Zouérate, loud celebrations could be heard until late as people ran from polling stations proclaiming the victory of their candidate and marched through the streets chanting cheerfully in unison. After decades of corrupt, autocratic rule, there seemed to be a sense of excitement and change in the air. As one resident of Nouakchott put it, "In a few years I hope Mauritania will be an ideal democracy. These elections are the beginning."
