Domestic Politics

President Aziz indicated on 5 March that he would not seek to amend the constitution to enable him to contest the 2019 presidential elections. Nevertheless, he faced some pressure to remain in office. On 24 May Imam Mahfoudh Ould Brahim Vall and other prominent religious leaders called on Aziz to serve a third term. Aziz denied once again all intentions for constitutional amendments to enable a third term. Owing to a fragmented opposition, Aziz had previously been able to carry out several constitutional reforms, such as abolishing the Senate and the High Court. These measures had centralised power in the hands of the executive (AYB2017). The discussions within the fndu leadership about the most effective way of challenging the government became even more intensive during the spring. Those in favour of electoral participation argued that opposition parties would be able to make a significant political impact, provided that they coordinate their efforts. On 21 April, fndu chairman Mohamed Ould Maouloud confirmed fndu’s participation in the legislative, regional, and municipal elections.

According to the ‘Commission Électorale Nationale Indépendante’ (ceni), 1.3 m voters were registered to vote and candidates represented more than 100 parties. Campaigning began officially on 17 August and, despite the large number of parties participating, two groups dominated, the ruling upr, headed by President Aziz, and the fndu. In the first round, on 1 September, the upr gained 67 of the 157 seats in the National Assembly. Opposition parties gained 31 seats, of which 14 were gained by the moderate Islamist party Tawassoul. In the second round, on 15 September, the upr secured all remaining 22 seats, reaching altogether 89 of 157 seats. These were complemented by the seats won in the first run by its allies, among them six seats by the ‘Union pour la Démocratie et le Développement’ (udp), led by Naha Mint Hamdi Ould Mouknass, who had been appointed as social and family affairs minister in a cabinet reshuffle on 12 June. The upr also gained a majority in 4 of the 13 new regional councils and 108 of the 219 municipalities. The upr’s strong performance was explained in part by the benefits of incumbency – President Aziz was a dominant figure, and the ruling party received positive coverage and attention in the local media. However, a strong performance in the election campaign enabled opposition groups to increase their public profile and establish greater coherence in the parliamentary work. The turnout was, according to the official figures confirmed by ceni, 73% in the first round and 56% in the second.

On 5 December the fndu announced that it would present a single candidate in the 2019 presidential elections. Negotiations were underway with the ‘Rassemblement des Forces Démocratiques’ (rfd), led by Ahmed Ould Daddah, and with Abdel Salem Ould’s ‘Sawab Horma’, allied to Biram Dah Abeid’s ‘Initiative de Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste’ (ira Mauritanie) and ‘Convergence Démocratique Nationale’ (cdn), led by Mahfoudh Ould Bettah. The ‘Alliance Populaire Progressiste’ (app), led by the former speaker of the National Assembly, Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, who supported a presidential candidate in the September elections, was not invited. However, Aziz’s successor was expected to hail from the upr or the security establishment. Aziz’s cabinet reshuffle on 30 October was regarded as a step to bring certain party members to the fore. Mohamed Salem Ould Bechir, the former chief executive of the ‘Société Nationale Industrielle et Minière’ (snim), replaced Yahya Ould Hademine as prime minister, and the appointment of the army’s chief of staff, General Mohamed Ould el Ghazouani, as the defence minister indicated a growing preparedness within the upr to face the presidential elections.

The government continued its efforts to eradicate slavery. On 28 March a court in Nouadhibou sentenced two slave owners found guilty of enslaving a family, including two children, and of holding three sisters as slaves, to between 10 and 20 years in jail. According to human rights activists, this was probably the harshest anti-slavery decision in the country’s history. However, the government’s anti-slavery actions were regarded as insufficient. On 26 January the au criticised Mauritania for failing to take action against widespread slavery. Furthermore, on 11 November us president Donald Trump announced the United States’s intention to “terminate the eligibility of Mauritania for trade preference benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (agoa), as of January 1, 2019, due to forced labor practices”, based on the results of the required annual agoa eligibility review and a public hearing held on 16 August. Biram Dah Abeid, an anti-slavery activist and 2014 presidential candidate, was arrested on 7 August on charges of having threatened a journalist. He was released on 31 December after receiving a sentence of six months already served. On 8 November, ai reported that the human rights blogger Mohamed Mkhaïtir was still being detained at an “undisclosed location”, although authorities should have released him in November 2017 (AYB2017). Altogether, 32 human rights organisations were campaigning for his release and protection.

The government claimed its commitment to improve the country’s image in terms of combating corruption. However, in ti’s Corruption Perceptions Index, the country was ranked at an all-time high (144/175), compared with an average rank of 126.5 from 2006 until 2018, and a record low of 84 in 2006.

Mauritania’s ranking in the eiu’s 2017 Democracy Index was 121/167 countries, three places lower than in 2016. In this index, the regime was categorised as ‘authoritarian’, reflecting the government’s continued suppression on human rights and ethnic minority activists. However, the country reached a relatively strong score for political participation, reflecting that citizens remained engaged in national politics and organised public protests.

Foreign Affairs

Mauritania strengthened its relations with other African countries and signed the AfCFTA during an extraordinary summit of au Heads of State and Government on 21 March in Kigali, Rwanda. The agreement aims to build an integrated market in Africa and covers both goods and services, including investments, intellectual property, and competition. The thirty-first au summit took place 25 June–2 July in the capital, Nouakchott, under the topic “Winning the Fight against Corruption: A Sustainable Path to Africa’s Transformation”. Other issues on the agenda were increasing trade between member states and security concerns in the Sahel region. During the summit, five additional countries signed the AfCFTA, bringing the total number of signatories to 49. But, for the agreement to come into effect, 22 countries must ratify it within 180 days of it being signed.

Disputes over fishing territories between Senegal and Mauritania caused increased tension between the two countries. A bilateral fishing agreement had not been renewed when it expired in 2016, as both countries failed to come to terms on inshore fishing. Incidents between the Mauritanian coastguard and Senegalese fishermen became frequent, and a dispute erupted on 28 January as Fallou Diakhaté, a 19-year-old Senegalese fisherman, was shot dead by a Mauritanian coastguard. In official statements, Mauritania called the killing of Diakhaté an “unfortunate incident” caused by a “non-authorized fishermen’s” refusal to “comply with repeated orders from the crew”. Violent protest broke out in the northern Senegalese city of Saint Louis, where shops owned by Mauritanians were attacked, even if the authorities urged the protestors to keep calm. The Senegalese government condemned the killing, and the incident was also raised in discussions between President Aziz and his Senegalese counterpart, Macky Sall, during the thirtieth au Summit in Addis Ababa on 29 January. A new MoU on fisheries, providing Senegalese fishermen with a quota of 50,000 tonnes, was signed at ministerial level on 4 July and ratified on 19 December. Senegal would compensate Mauritania € 15 for each tonne of fish caught in its water, of which € 10 would be covered by the fishermen themselves; the rest, by the Senegalese state.

The fight against terrorism and regional security threats dominated relations between Mauritania and its West African neighbours. Together with Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, and Mali, Mauritania continued to participate in the G5 du Sahel (G5S), a regional security and development organisation founded in 2014. Despite financial constraints, G5S’s new Priority Investment Plan (pip) for 2019–21, structured around G5S’s four strategic axes – defence and security, governance, infrastructure and human development, and resilience – was adopted on 6 December. A portfolio of 40 projects was selected for an overall cost of just under € 2 bn. However, the financing gap was just over € 1.7 bn (i.e., 87% of the overall budget). On 23 February the International High Level Conference on the Sahel, organised by the eu, the un, the au, and G5S countries, pledged € 414 m to support G5S, but according to a statement by G5S’s secretariat on 27 November, only € 93 m had been disbursed.

Increased communication between different terrorist groups operating in Mali and beyond, including al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (aqim), Ansar Dine, and al-Mourabitoune, was expected to complicate G5S’s task and increase the risk of coordinated attacks. On 29 June, the headquarters of G5S’s new joint military force in Sévaré, near Mopti in Mali, was the target of a suicide bombing. This was the first attack of this scale against G5S’s military headquarters, and it coincided with preparations for the meeting between G5S leaders and France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, on 2–3 July in Nouackchott. The ‘Groupe de Soutien à l’Islam et aux Musulmans’, a fusion of Ansar Dine, aqim, and al-Mourabitoune, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mauritania hosted more than 50,000 Malian refugees in Mbera, a camp established in 2012 in the arid south-eastern region close to the Malian border, and had committed troops to the un Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (minusma).

On 19 August Algeria’s interior minister, Nouredine Bedoui, and his Mauritanian counterpart, Ahmedou Ould Abdalla, inaugurated the opening of a border post near the Algerian town of Tindouf and Zouerate in Mauritania. Although the level of trade between the two countries remained low (owing to ongoing security concerns), the border opening, which had been under discussion between the two countries since the second half of 2017, was expected to grant Mauritania’s oil supplies from Algeria.

Mauritania and Algeria participated together with Morocco and Polisario on 5–6 December in round-table talks in Geneva, at the request of Horst Köhler, the un secretary general’s personal envoy. The purpose of the round table was to find a mutually acceptable solution to the long-term conflict between Morocco and Western Sahara.

Mauritania also sought to bolster ties with Arab states and enjoyed some economic benefits from Saudi Arabia as a result both of its deployment of 2,000 troops to the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen and also of its termination of diplomatic ties with Qatar. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, visited Mauritania on 2 December and reiterated the kingdom’s continued diplomatic and economic support. However, the local media reported that students from the University of Nouakchott protested against Bin Salman’s visit owing to allegations of his responsibility in the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, on 2 October in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Mauritania continued to strengthen its relations with its main trading partner, China, and President Aziz participated in the focac at the beginning of September. The eu continued to be an important strategic partner, and, as a sign of growing bilateral relationships, the United Kingdom upgraded its office to embassy and in May 2018 appointed Mr Samuel Thomas as its first-ever resident ambassador to Mauritania.

Socioeconomic Developments

Mauritania started to redenominate its currency, the ouguiya, from 1 January, according to a presidential decision of 28 November 2017. Each new ouguiya was worth ten units of the pre-existing ones. The measure was introduced in order to reduce the currency in circulation in the parallel economy outside the banking system. The reform was regarded as a success, and the Central Bank estimated nearly 15,000 new bank accounts had been registered during the first six months. The new currency notes were also designed in a more durable and innovative way in order to prevent forgery.

gdp growth was estimated at 2.5%, and inflation was estimated at an average of 3.8%, boosted mainly by higher food prices but also reflecting declines in global oil prices. Mauritania remained vulnerable to price changes in international markets, as well as to any downturn in domestic agricultural output. To fund the fiscal deficit, the government relied heavily on concessional loans from multilateral agencies such as the imf. Economic policy focused on maintaining macroeconomic stability in order to secure imf support under an ecf between 2017 and 2020. In a statement on 30 January, imf managing director Christine Lagarde reiterated “that the imf stands ready to continue to support Mauritania in its reform efforts” and that “Mauritania should take advantage of the current favorable external environment to accelerate reforms and transition to stronger growth”. The ecf programme focussed on modernising the foreign exchange market (enabling greater exchange-rate flexibility), improving the banking sector and business environment, and boosting fiscal revenue and restricting public finance management to release government funds for spending on infrastructure, education, and other social goals.

On 9 February Mauritania and Senegal signed an agreement for the Grand Tortue/Ahmeyim offshore gas field. The gas field was estimated to hold 450 bn cubic metres of gas and to have a capacity to produce gas for several decades. The countries agreed to share the gas field resources equally. Following the intergovernmental agreement, the British company bp and its partners, the us-based Kosmos Energy and national oil companies Petrosen and smhpm, announced on 21 December that the Final Investment Decision (fid) for Phase 1 of the development process had been agreed. The start of production was scheduled for 2022, and it was expected to boost the hydrocarbons sector in both countries and lower Mauritania’s exposure to global prices for its main exports, iron ore and gold. Mining receipts contributed around a third of fiscal revenue. The price of iron ore remained low, on average $ 70/dmtu (dry metric ton unit), compared with its peak of $ 164.1/dmtu in 2011.

The slightly improved security situation and visitors from France boosted the tourism sector, despite the country’s not being connected to the atm system, and even though credit cards were accepted hardly anywhere. Commercial-scale organised desert tourism gave a major economic boost to communities in towns such as Atar, in the region of Adrar, about 400 km north-east of Nouakchott, where alternative sources of business and employment were largely absent.

Insufficient and irregular rainfall in 2017 and early 2018 significantly disrupted crop and livestock production in the Sahel region, and in May the un was alerted to a significant food crisis in six Sahel countries. In Mauritania the situation was the worst seen during the previous five years. More than half a million people were estimated to be in severe food insecurity. Further, rapid urbanisation, decades of modest investment in the agricultural sector, and insufficient management of water resources exacerbated the nutritional situation.