Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani has been re-elected as head of state after Saturday’s national vote according to the provisional results.
The electoral commission website revealed how he clinched over 56% of the vote, to defeat six opposition candidates.
Biram Dah Abeid, the anti-slavery activist had come second with 22% of the votes while Hamadi Sidi el-Mokhtar of the Islamist Tewassoul party placed third in the presidential race with 13%.
Analysts were expecting him to win the election in the first round.
The president, an ex-army chief, is credited with establishing stability since his first election five years ago, after decades of political unrest and frequent coups.
He has also been allies with Western countries, France and the US, but he also kept ties with junta-led neighbours, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which have swayed towards Russia in recent years.
So far, Mauritania has mostly avoided the Islamist insurgencies affecting its neighbouring Sahel states.
This is Abeid’s third time of contesting for the presidential seat.
He come second in the 2019 elections where Ghazouani emerged the winner.
He and other opposition candidates have claimed irregularities in that election, which led to small-scale protests.
According to the Mauritania electoral website, the turnout for the elections this year was about 55%.
What They’re Saying
Upon the announcement of the result on Sunday, Abeid said he would not recognise the results, calling it an “electoral coup”.
“We’ll not accept these results from the so-called independent electoral commission. We’ll use our own electoral commission to proclaim the results,” he told journalists.
