Politics of Mauritania
Control remains tightly concentrated in the executive branch of the central government, but a series of national and municipal elections since 1992 have produced some limited decentralization.
After independence, President Moktar Ould Daddah, originally installed by the French, formalized Mauritania into a one-party state in 1964 with a new constitution, which set up an authoritarian presidential regime.
The Parti Républicain Démocratique et Social (PRDS), led by President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, has dominated Mauritanian politics since the country's first multi-party elections in April 1992 following the approval by referendum of the current constitution in July 1991.
President Taya, who won elections in 1992, 1997 and 2003, first became chief of state through a December 12, 1984, bloodless coup which made him Chairman of the committee of military officers that governed Mauritania from July 1978 to April 1992.
Noting procedural changes and opposition gains in municipal and legislative contests, most local observers considered the October 2001 elections open and transparent.
A group identifying itself as the Military Council for Justice and Democracy (CMJD) overthrew the Taya Government on 3 August 2005 during the absence of the President in Saudi Arabia for King Fahd's funeral.
Col. Mohamed Vall was once regarded as a firm ally of the now-ousted president Sid'Ahmed Taya, even aiding him in the original coup that brought him to power, and later serving as his security chief.
Applauded by the Mauritanian people, but cautiously watched by the international community, the coup has since been generally accepted, while the military junta has promised to organize elections within two years.
In February 2006, the new Mauritanian government denounced amendments to an oil contract made by former Leader Ould Taya with Woodside Petroleum, an Australian company.
The controversial amendments, which Mauritanian authorities declared had been signed "outside the legal framework of normal practice, to the great detriment of our country", could cost Mauritania up to $200 million a year, according to BBC News.
Signed by Woodside two weeks after the February 1, 2005, legislation authorizing the four amendments, they provided for a lower state quota in the profit-oil, and reduced taxes by 15 percent in certain zones.
Nouakchott's authorities declared that the government would likely seek international arbitration, which Woodside (which operated for Hardman, BG Group, Premier, ROC Oil, Fusion, Petronas, Dana Petroleum, Energy Africa and the Hydrocarbons Mauritanian Society) also contemplated.
[2] On August 6, 2008, Mauritania's presidential spokesman Abdoulaye Mamadou Ba said President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghef and the Interior minister, were arrested by renegade Senior Mauritanian army officers, unknown troops and a group of generals, and were held under house arrest at the Presidential palace in Nouakchott.
[7] Mauritanian lawmaker, Mohammed Al Mukhtar, announced that "many of the country's people were supporting the takeover attempt and the government is 'an authoritarian regime'" and that the president had "marginalized the majority in parliament.
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