Having turned from a coup leader to elected president, Ould Abdel-Aziz may have bought himself a measure of legitimacy, but that doesn't make his job any easier, reckons Attiya Issawi If things go well for Mauritania's new president, Mohamed Ould Abdel-Aziz, and he is not overthrown in a coup before he gets his act together, the tasks facing him would be nothing short of monumental. One mistake or two would be enough to turn the public against him, at which time the military would not take long to oust him. Mauritania's first democratically elected president, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdullahi lost his job to a coup d'état in August 2008. That coup brought to an end a promising democratic experiment that many hoped would usher in a period of democratic governance in Africa. One of the challenges facing Mauritania is poverty. Nearly half the population live under the poverty line, and not for lack of natural resources. The country is rich in oil, gas, copper, gypsum, cement, and fishing is plentiful along the Atlantic coast. Many may think Mauritania is basically a desert, but actually the country has abundant water on more than one third of its territories. Political instability is a serious problem, as there have been at least 16 coup attempts, five of which were successful, in the past 27 years. The instability has sapped the country's resources. It has also twisted the priorities of the rulers, who are more interested in survival than in bettering the conditions of their compatriots. Mauritania is rich, only its people are poor. With unemployment running at 21 per cent, disgruntled youths offer a breeding ground for crime, if not terror. Corruption is another problem in a country that is divided solely between rich and poor with no middle class. Those who live in abject poverty, estimated to be 47 per cent of the population, expect the new president to redistribute wealth and fight corruption and nepotism. In a country where top jobs go to well-connected people, few leaders dare to challenge the status quo. And a president who wishes to redress the wrongs of the past may be endangering his own life, and not just his job, in the process. The privileged classes control the army and are likely to stage another coup if their status is threatened. In fact, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdullahi was overthrown because he dismissed the army chief of staff, the presidential guard chief, and the head of police simultaneously. Slavery is another problem despite anti-slavery laws passed in 1905, 1961, 1981, and 2007. Only recently, the parliament passed a draft law criminalising slavery and stipulating a punishment of 5-10 years for those who practise it. The draft law prohibits any publication from praising slavery, punishing its authors with two years in prison. The draft law, which human rights groups say is inadequate, also punishes the legal authorities if they fail to enforce these penalties. Still, it would be hard for the new president to implement the said law, simply because slavery has coalesced into an entrenched social custom. Often it is the freed slaves who refuse to part with their owners, even if the latter want them to leave, because they prefer the security of slavery to the uncertainly of the market place. Most of the slaves don't own land and have no marketable skills to help them make ends meet. But human rights organisations, local as well as international, will continue to pressure the president on the slavery issue, forgetting that the final decision is not only up to the president, but to the thousands of slaves and slave-owners in the country. Another important issue is the rights of the black minority groups that constitute nearly 18 per cent of the population. These groups have spawned a rebellion in the south that only ended when thousands were expelled into Senegal in 1989, after some of them tried to overthrow the regime of Ould Taya. This led to tensions with Senegal and a war was only narrowly avoided. The black minority complains that its rights are denied while the Moors, who are the descendants of Arab and Amazighi tribes, nearly 80 per cent of the population, rule the land. Unless the president does something to satisfy the demands of black groups, their rebellion may yet turn into a civil war. At which time, expect human rights abuses to occur, something that may turn public opinion abroad against the government and bring a halt to foreign investment in the country. Should this happen, a coup will not be far behind. The new president needs to be fair in treating the 400 tribes in the country and refrain from giving top positions to members of his tribe alone. This was the mistake that Siad Barre committed and was deposed for in 1991. Ould Taya established relations with Israel in 1999 in an attempt to get US and Israeli backing, after his relations with Senegal, France, and the Arab world deteriorated. He tried to protect his regime against any possible coup and was successful for a while, until General Ely Ould Mohamed Fal succeeded in overthrowing him in 2005. A lot of debate has gone on about relations with Israel and whether they should be severed immediately or kept in place to guarantee Western support. Neither Ely Ould Fal nor Abdallahi dared to sever ties with Israel. But the last coup leader, General Ould Abdel-Aziz, sort of severed these relations in an attempt to win domestic support and shore up his power. Faced with a continued boycott by the West, Abdel-Aziz decided to bank on his popularity and run for president. Now that elections have brought him back to office, he has to make up his mind. Either he decisively severs relations with Israel, risking Western hostility and scheming, or he restores them risking a domestic backlash. Al-Qaeda has carried out several attacks against foreign tourists in Mauritania in the past few months, as they expand their activities in North Africa, especially in Algeria, Mali, Libya and Mauritania. The pace of attacks has picked up after the Salafi Group for Propagation and Combat joined Al-Qaeda and changed its name to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The said organisation has pledged to attack Western interests and pro-Western governments. Not even China is safe. Al-Qaeda has threatened to strike at Chinese interests in the region, a threat that China, with 50,000 workers in Algeria alone, is taking seriously. Attacks by Al-Qaeda on foreign companies engaged in the production of oil and gas in Mauritania could add pressure on the new president, who must be aware that widespread unemployment offers terror groups an opportunity to recruit freely among the young. Only a few months ago an attack was waged on a military base in northern Mauritania. More recently clashes took place in Nouakchott. And just before the election, police said that it killed one Al-Qaeda member and arrested another in a gun fight near the airport.
