Former Mauritanian president Ely Ould Mohamed Vall on Tuesday called on local and international civil society groups not to recognize the country’s upcoming presidential polls in which incumbent President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz will vie for a second term in office. “These farcical elections will be supervised by a non-representative commission dedicated to serving the interests of one political party,” read a press statement issued by Vall. The June 21 presidential election is being boycotted by the National Forum for Democracy and Unity, an umbrella group of opposition parties ranging from social democrats to Islamists.
In a statement, former Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf, the FNDU’s main negotiator in the dialogue between the opposition and the ruling majority, said that “all the political parties affiliated to the Forum decided unanimously to boycott this election.”
The group had initially called for a raft of reforms concerning election monitoring. It has also called for guarantees that the country’s army and police would remain neutral regarding the polls.
“I exhort national and international figures not to lend legitimacy to sham elections that will destroy democracy and deepen the country’s political crisis,” Vall said.
Full Article: Ex-Mauritanian president calls upcoming elections “farcical” | Middle East Eye.
