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Mauritania holds elections despite opposition boycott | Mauritania holds elections despite opposition boycott |
(about 13 hours later) | |
Mauritanians have voted in general and local elections - the first since a military coup five years ago. | |
The party of leader Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, the Union for the Republic, is expected to retain power. | |
However, the poll was boycotted by almost all the radical opposition parties. They have described it as an "electoral masquerade". | |
The main Islamist party, Tewassoul, took part, but in what it described as a struggle against a "dictatorship". | |
Mr Abdel Aziz was elected president a year after seizing power, but Mauritania's Islamist opposition have never accepted the result. | |
Western powers consider mainly Muslim Mauritania as a bulwark against the influence of al-Qaeda-linked groups in the Sahel region. | Western powers consider mainly Muslim Mauritania as a bulwark against the influence of al-Qaeda-linked groups in the Sahel region. |
About a third of the country's 3.4 million population were eligible to vote. | |
Dialogue door 'open' | |
Some 1,500 candidates took part, from 74 parties representing the administration and "moderate" opposition. | |
They competed for 147 seats in parliament and the leadership of 218 local councils. | |
First results are due to come in on Sunday. | |
A second round is to be held on 7 December for those constituencies where no candidate gains enough votes to win outright. | |
Casting his ballot in the capital Nouakchott on Saturday, President Abdelaziz said the opposition had lost its parliamentary voice over the past five years - but the door to dialogue would remain open. | |
The head of Tewassoul, Mohamed Jamil Ould Mansour, said after voting that his party had documented irregularities during the campaign and now awaited the result of the ballot. | |
Referring to the opposition boycott, he said, "We hope that the citizens would go to the voting stations and to cast their votes en masse." |
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