Mauritanian opposition parties win legislatives seats in close...

Mauritanian opposition parties win legislatives seats in close races

The Associated PressPublished: November 22, 2006


NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania: Parties that had opposed Mauritania's ousted ruler gained the largest share of seats in the northwest African country's first legislative elections since a coup last August, but many races will be decided by a second-round ballot, officials said Wednesday.

Results from Mauritania's first legislative elections since a military junta seized control last August gave the majority of decided seats to parties that opposed the 21-year ruler at the head of a new government.

The results for national and municipal representatives were announced Wednesday night by Mauritania's interior minister after being delayed three days for error-checking. The country has been ruled by a military junta since August 2005, when Col. Ely Ould Mohamed Vall took over the country while 21-year ruler Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya was away.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ahmed Ould Mohamed Lemine said the vote decided 43 out of 95 national legislative seats, with the rest to be decided in a second round vote next month. A candidate needed more than 50 percent of the vote to win outright.

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About 788,000 people voted in Sunday's election, a turnout of about 73 percent. International observers generally said the vote went well, without major incidents.

Lemine said a second tour on Dec. 3 will decide the remaining 52 seats.

Mauritania has never changed regimes through elections. Instead, it has been wracked by 10 coups or attempted coups since independence from France 1960.

In a rare move for the conservative, Muslim country, 20 percent of the legislative seats have been set aside for women. Vall called it a way to break "old practices where women were dominated by men."

Vall has made other reforms that have won over western countries, at first suspicious of his talk of change. he has mde many ensure transparency in the country's nascent oil sector. Mauritania began pumping its first crude in February.

Vall has banned any member of the ruling junta from standing in the elections and has promised that none of them, including himself, will run in a presidential ballot scheduled for March.