NOUKCHOTT (Agencies)
Mauritania's coup leader Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz took a commanding lead in the presidential election winning 52 percent of votes with more than half the ballots counted, the electoral commission said Sunday.
According to the partial results released with 61 percent of ballots counted, the nearest challenger was parliamentary speaker Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, the anti-coup front candidate, with 17 percent of votes.
Military leader and presidential candidat General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz casts his vote In third place was the head of the main opposition party, Ahmed Ould Daddah, with 14 percent of votes.
Out of a field of nine candidates for president, the moderate Islamist Jemil Ould Mansour has garnered five percent of the vote and the former junta chief in 2005-2007, colonel Elu Ould Mohamed Vall, four percent.
The electoral commission said voter turnout was at 61 percent.
If the tendency is confirmed, the leader of last August's coup, who ceded control as head of the junta in April and resigned from the army to contest Saturday's election, will be elected in the first round without the need for a runoff.
However, the four main opposition candidates Sunday denounced the poll as a charade as early results came in.
"Firstly we firmly reject these prefabricated results, secondly we call on the international community to put in place an enquiry to shed some light on the electoral process," the group said in a statement issued on Sunday.
"The results which are starting to come out show that it is an electoral charade which is trying to legitimize the coup," Ould Boulkheir told a press conference.
Saturday's elections are intended to restore constitutional democracy to this arid, but potentially oil-rich country in northwest Africa. |
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More than 200 observers Parliamentary speaker Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, center Ould Abdel Aziz toppled President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in a coup on Aug. 6, 2008.
His promises of food and fuel price cuts were likely to endear him to Mauritanians, 40 percent of whom live under the poverty line.
International donors such as the European Union and United States halted aid programs in protest at the coup, but a transparent vote would be a step towards restarting cooperation.
Neither the EU nor United Nations have sent observers, but there are more than 200 overseeing the election from organizations including the African Union -- which lifted sanctions this month -- and the Arab League.
Abdel Aziz made combating terrorism a cornerstone of his justification for seizing power, accusing President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi of slackening off on al-Qaeda.
Mauritania is an ally of the West in the fight against the group, though the international marginalization that began after the August coup intensified when it shut the Israeli embassy in March in protest at the Jewish state's invasion of Gaza.
Until then, Mauritania had been one of only three Arab countries to have full diplomatic relations with Israel. |
