Mauritania awaits results from historic elections Web posted at:...

Mauritania awaits results from historic elections
Web posted at: 11/21/2006 3:5:3
Source ::: AFP
NOUAKCHOTT • Mauritanians yesterday awaited preliminary results of polls that gave them their first chance to vote for lawmakers since the military ousted an autocratic regime and pledged to hold democratic elections.

Ballots were still being counted after Sunday's polls, when about a million people were eligible to pick 95 members of the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, and 219 local government councillors.

Early partial results showed that two opposition movements and the party of Maaouiya Ould Taya, who ruled for more than 20 years before the bloodless coup in August 2005, were ahead in the capital, a government source said.

"Two big (opposition) parties ... and the (former ruling) Republican Party for Democracy and Renewal lead the pack in the two elections in Nouakchott and Trarza" in the southwest, the source said, stressing that the figures were "fragmentary".

The opposition parties are the Popular Alliance of Progressists (APP), a coalition of nationalists and former slaves, and the Rally of Democratic Forces (RFD) of Ahmed Ould Daddah, a fiery opponent of the former regime in the west African country.

The first official announcement of partial results was expected on Monday night.

After deposing Taya, a military junta pledged a transition to civilian democracy and promised to hand over power within 19 months of taking over the helm of one of Africa's largest but thinly populated countries.

Mauritania is two-thirds desert and many of its three million people are poor, but oil has been discovered in recent years and production began last February.

A referendum five months ago, marking the first major poll of the transition process, overwhelmingly approved a new constitution limiting presidential mandates and granting parliament powers to censure the government.

Voter turnout is expected to range between 65 per cent and 70 per cent of the registered voters.

Observers and political parties said Sunday's vote passed without incident.

"The vote went well throughout the country," Marie-Anne Isler Beguin, head of the European Union observer team, said.