3 IPRIS Maghreb Review JUNE 2010 would elect its own local assembly. In no substantial space for opposition The unavoidable Mauritania, the local assembly was groups. The situation improved to quickly controlled by one party, the some extent during the short regime power of the Union Progressiste Mauritanienne, a of Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdellahi (2007- coalition of ruling families, notables, 2008). But he was ousted by a mili- military in and civil servants, very strongly sup- tary coup barely fifteen months after ported by local French administra- his election, thereby reminding all Mauritania tors. political actors that civil political op- When the country became indepen- position has a long way to go. dent in 1960, this ruling coalition This first dominant political fea- CÉDRIC JOURDE soon imposed a one-party rule. With ture of Mauritania is closely con- Associate Professor, School of Political no formal opposition allowed, Presi- nected to a second one: the politi- Studies, University of Ottawa dent Mukhtar Ould Daddah and his cal prominence of the military. This Parti du Peuple Mauritanien ruled the institution became a factor in the country for 18 years, using a combi- mid-1970s, when President Ould The last five years in the Islamic Re- nation of repression and cooptation Daddah decided to join Morocco in public of Mauritania brought about against opponents, though admit- a war against the Polisario Front. In many changes, including two coup tedly resorting to less violence than less than three years, from 1975 to d’états and two presidential elec- other governments at the time (Mo- 1978, the size of the army increased tions. Shedding light on this troubled rocco, Zaire, etc.). Unsurprisingly, from approximately 2,000 to 18,000 political cycle requires that we look the military regime which ousted troops. Ould Daddah quickly paid back in Mauritanian history. Two sig- Ould Daddah after 1978 perpetuated the price of his strategic miscal- nificant political patterns must be this pattern of hegemonic rule. The culations during the war and was highlighted here. 1989-1991 wave of violent repression ousted in 1978 through the first coup First, from the French colonial ad- against ethnic minorities (Haalpu- d’état of the country’s history. Since ministration to the current govern- laaren, Sooninke and Wolof), during then, the military controls the coun- ment, rulers of Mauritania have which hundreds of people were killed try’s political system, though under constantly displayed high anxieties and about 80,000 expelled from the different guises. vis-à-vis any form of political op- country, epitomized this intolerance As said above, the democratic re- position, including democratic op- towards dissent voices. forms of 1991 that ended thirteen position. As a foreign force occupy- The political reforms implemented years of uninterrupted military rule ing what is now Mauritania, French in 1991 were democratic, at least did not alter the balance of power; colonial administrators were always officially, and meant to open up the Colonel Ould Taya was in full con- looking for ‘seditious’ or ‘subversive’ political space. In reality however, trol over the country’s political life. groups and individuals. To temper Colonel Ould Taya, and his party, the In 2005, his closest collaborators, nationalist pressures after World Parti Républicain Démocratique et Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall and War II, the French government decid- Renouvellement, enjoyed a de facto Colonel Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz ed that each of its colonial territories monopoly of power, leaving almost staged a coup against him. The new IPRIS Maghreb Review | 2 military junta pledged to bring de- But silence is far from what the Amer- mocracy back; it organized local, Democracy and icans have in mind of late. Staff in the legislative and presidential elec- US embassy in Tunisia, and without a tions. Unwilling to lose control of the EU Association whisper from the usually active and political scene, the military ensured ubiquitous security forces, spoke that the candidate whom it had cho- in Bin Ali’s with representatives of the country’s sen, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdellahi, won opposition. For three hours Samir the presidency (April 2007). His mili- Dillou, a human rights lawyer active tary tutors, however, stayed close: Tunisia: Where on the question of prisoners of con- Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz was ap- science, and Ziyad Al-Dawlatli, one of pointed as the President’s personal to? the Nahdah party’s leaders inside Tu- military chief of staff. Following a nisia, tried to share their assessment series of political mistakes by Ould LARBI SADIKI of Tunisia’s state of affairs with their Cheikh Abdellahi, including that of Lecturer, University of Exeter American interlocutors. distancing himself from his military Succession of President Bin Ali was patrons, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz the key question topping the Ameri- (now a General) immediately ousted Tunis, like other Maghribi capitals, can agenda in Tunis (and no doubt him (August of 2008) and organized a seems to recede further into oblivion. this could be the same for Libya and presidential election which he won in Political excitement when Narcissist Algeria). Whether Bin Ali survives un- the summer of 2009 with 52% of the Gaddafi is holding his tongue seems til 2014 and the ‘who’s who’ of Tuni- votes, amidst accusations of fraud; to be singularly uninteresting. The real sian politicians capable of inheriting his closest rival could not get more political kitchen where things seem to the mantle of the presidency is a key than 19% of the votes. be concocted and heated is in the Arab American concern. In some US quar- Paradoxically, the military’s domi- Gulf, Levant, Gaza and surroundings, ters, there is a view that the succes- nance is reinforced by the current Egypt where El-Baradei and the Mus- sion could happen before 2014. Unof- presence of security threats. In Mau- lim Brotherhood are teaming up to ficially, the US does not look favorably ritania, since 2005, acts of violence road-map post-Mubarak politics, and on dynastic rule in Tunisia. What is in- by ‘Islamists’ (such as Al-Qaeda in Sudan, which may be only six months evitable is that the Trabelsi family will the Islamic Maghreb) have regu- away from losing the south and the for some time (given the absence of larly made the headlines. This has birth of a new African state. impartial legal scrutiny) continue to translated into more diplomatic and If the elite in Tunis is oblivious to what expand their wealth. This may be the financial support for the Maurita- happens outside its Mediterranean trade-off the Trabelsi brothers (espe- nian military. Given the prominence shores, the world seems not to be total- cially billionaire Bilhassen Trabelsi) of the military, relations among key ly indifferent in return. Barack Obama’s want in return for not coveting the officers usually determine where recent mention of Tunisia in the same presidential prize. But that may not the country goes. For the moment, breathe as countries topping the black mean they will not put their economic the degree of acrimony among ri- list of press censorship and absence weight behind someone else such as val factions of military officers, and of freedom must have shaken, and no the President’s advisor, Abdelwahab their complex business and tribal doubt angered, the rulers. No news Abdallah (former Foreign Minister), ramifications, is difficult to evaluate from Tunis is good news. But when the trusted by both Bin Ali and Layla Bin (as is the extent to which this type of only news is about absence of freedom, Ali. The key question is determining rivalry plays into the issue of ‘radi- rulers must take notice. There is little how ambitious Bin Ali is, and whether cal Islamism’). So far, General Ould rulers can do against the Americans. a weak female President delivers the Abdel Aziz has been able to main- Obama is not George W. Bush; and the kind of political goods – namely sta- tain some balance among divergent US is not France. The Tunisians never bility and a pact with civil society pre- interest groups in and around the hesitate to use France’s status as the paring the country for a future with- army. However, as a coup maker country’s former colonial power as an out the Bin Ali of the Trabelsi clans himself, he is well aware that ev- axe to grind, rejecting even the mild- – is another question that the Ameri- ery single change of head of state in est criticism against press freedom cans, amongst others, are canvassing Mauritania occurred through a coup or freedoms in general. There is little as the countdown for Bin Ali’s depar- d’état (with the exception of Colonel these rulers can do except not com- ture from power begins in earnest. Of Ould Mohamed Vall’s resignation be- ment and hope silence guarantees re- course, Layla may opt out of the race fore the election of Ould Cheikh Ab- turn to normalcy: the usual modus ope- to replace Bin Ali but with her bets dellahi in 2007). This does not fare randi that whatever rot may be building placed on one of the younger Trabelsi very well for substantial democratic in the Kingdom of Denmark should be brothers. She may already be culti- changes, however. met with silence. vating her young brother Imad Tra- IPRIS Maghreb Review | 3 belsi, the new Mayor of the rich Tunis poor status of human rights in Tuni- nisians the government Bin Ali rightly district of La Goulette, to be the dark sia. The Spanish presidency has been and historically promised in 1987. horse in the race to occupy Carthage.