By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Incumbent Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani has won a second term in office, emerging elected with 56.12% of the vote, while human rights activist Biram Ould Dah Abeid came second with 22.10%, the National Independent Electoral Commission announced on Monday.
The leader of opposition Islamist party National Rally for Reform and Development, Hamadi Ould Sidi el Moctar secured third position with 12.76% of the vote, the electoral authority said.
The commission had completed vote counting for the presidential election held on Saturday to late Sunday.
El-Aid Ould Mohamedan, an opposition lawyer and parliament member, finished fourth with 3.57% of the vote, followed by politician Mamadou Boukari at 2.39% and opposition leader Atouma Soumare at 2.06%.
Meanwhile, an opposition finance expert Mohamed Lemine El Mourtaji El Wafi received only 1% of the votes.
Mauritanians voted for a new president on Saturday, choosing from seven candidates who tested their popularity among the voters.
According to electoral authority figures, the North African country has 1.9 million registered voters out of a population of approximately 4.5 million, with a turnout of 55.39%.
On Sunday, opposition candidate Dah Abeid rejected the election results, calling it an “electoral coup.”
He announced that he will now seek investigation into the election results, calling them “fraud.”
In a related development, the country’s Interior Ministry announced early Monday that its security forces had quelled “riots” following the announcement of election results.
The ministry said its forces responded to “riots” involving “tyre burning, disrupting traffic flow, and attempting to intimidate peaceful citizens and damage their property.”
Security forces “promptly addressed these acts of vandalism and fully controlled the situation,” the ministry added.
The northern African country has experienced several coups between 1978 and 2008.
In 2019, it marked a first peaceful power transfer between elected presidents since its independence from France in 1960.
