Letter from Nouakchott Pieter TesschThe sudden appearance of scores of armed gendarmes and police in full riot gear on the streets of Mauritanian capital Nouakchott when speaking last week in the run-up to the second round of Senate elections on February 4th indicated that the military council for democracy and justice (CMJD) was getting nervous.
Since the bloodless coup of August 3rd, 2005, the military had been virtually absent from the streets after years of autocratic rule of successive governments; but following weeks of rumours and allegations of the military council interfering in the presidential election campaign, President Ely Ould Mohamed Vall snapped.
As truckloads of gendarmes were posted at strategic points in Nouakchott and police lined the main thoroughfares during a seasonal sandstorm, the tall, normally sombre former head of military intelligence shouted at a meeting of newly elected mayors that the people could vote for whichever presidential candidate they liked on March 11th.
In fact, thundered Col Vall, the people could reject all of the 21 candidates by posting blank ballot papers and "we can start all over again, but I won't be standing", added the interim president.
The next day the president was forced to repeat that he was not going to stand as some groups had interpreted his outburst as a call to return blank ballots and as an indication that the CMJD still intended to hold on to power.
Up to now the election campaigns for the local authorities, for deputies to lower house of the legislature and the indirect election for the senate by local councillors, had been good-natured by and large. There had been some unexpected results, such as the defeat of a tribal emir by a descendant of former slaves in the region of the holy oasis city of Chinguetti.
But there is fear among the CMJD and civic groups that despite this breaking of the mould of Mauritanian politics, the re-election of politicians of the ancient regime that ruled this Atlantic seaboard stretch of the Sahara since independence in 1960 would mean a return to old-style politics of corruption and favouritism.
The military council would not like to see the Coalition of Forces for Democratic Change (CFCD) bloc of Ahmed Ould Daddah - the younger brother of Mukthar Ould Daddah, who was made Mauritania's first president by his father - to gain the upper hand.
But neither would it like Mithaq or Charter, a bloc led by supporters of ousted president Maaouiya Ould Sidi Mohamed Taya and independents to lead the country again, said diplomat Lafdal Ould Abeih.
"Ahmed virtually claims that the French had given Mauritania to the Daddah family," said a senior adviser to the president. But he denied that the CMJD was campaigning for the independent candidate Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, a former minister in governments of Daddah.
Cheikh Abdallahi, a widely respected moderate Muslim scholar, has broken with the Daddah political machine and, in an unexpected twist, has received the support of Mithaq, which has fielded no presidential candidate of its own.
"Cheikh Abdallahi is a good candidate, and is one of the few leading politicians of the Arab majority who has earned the respect of the black African minority," said Lafdal.
He explained that Cheikh, who belongs to a Muslim fraternity whose spiritual head is based in Senegal, was one of the few Arab politicians who condemned the anti-African pogrom instigated by Taya in 1989.
This is one of the unspoken issues in the election campaign and some observers fear that these tensions may resurface.
Cheikh, who stressed his independence from any bloc, measured his words carefully. "We are all Muslims but we live in a country that on the one hand faces north to the Maghreb, and to the south the rest of Africa . . . a Mauritanian government must reflect that."
EU observers have remarked that so far the elections have been transparent and have seen a good participation of people normally excluded from traditional Mauritanian politics - women, young people, the lower classes and people belonging to African ethnic groups.
"The CMJD has kept its promises about transparency of the electoral process, but it is up to them as well as the political blocs to guarantee order for the final stage of the transition to democracy during the presidential elections. Unfortunately there are still people who want to create disorder for their own interests," said Lafdal.
After 21 presidential candidates were officially declared last week already a number has cancelled their nominations in favour of others and it is expected that only five will remain - including Daddah and Cheikh - for the start of the campaign on February 23rd.
Meanwhile, Mithaq has won most seats in the 56-strong senate and has consolidated a comfortable majority in the 95-seat lower house.