Update on Mauritania’s Legislative and Municipal Election Results

On 15 September, Mauritania held the second round of its simultaneous legislative, municipal, and regional elections, following the first round on 1 September. Jeune Afrique has a good breakdown of the key outcomes here; most importantly, the second round saw the ruling Union for the Republic (UPR) increase its number of parliamentary deputies from 67 in the first round to 89 overall, out of 157 total seats in the assembly. UPR also extended its domination of Nouakchott’s communes, going from 5/9 before the elections to 6/9 afterwards. At both the legislative and the municipal level, the Islamist party Tewassoul was in second place, sometimes in coalition with the HATEM party. According to official estimates, turnout fell from 75% in the first round to 55% in the second round.

Some of the municipal results can be found here. Picking almost at random (someone should write a paper on these data, they’re fascinating), a few patterns stand out:

• Sometimes Tewassoul and UPR really ran neck and neck. For example, in the commune of Aouleiygat in the region of Trarza, Tewassoul won by fewer than two hundred votes – and the ultimate outcome was 9 seats for Tewassoul, 8 for UPR. Jeune Afrique notes this pattern as well.
• Again, I’m struck by Tewassoul’s ability to compete far beyond Nouakchott – here is a commune in Al-Hodh al-Gharbi, Devaa, where they edged out UPR 10 seats to 9. There are many places where Tewassoul obtained no seats, and UPR has wider representation overall, but Tewassoul is not just a Nouakchott-based party by any means.
• The UPR-Tewassoul rivalry is not at all the whole story of the elections – even together, their vote share in the first round was under 50%. In the municipal elections, UPR was beaten out in many communes by other parties. One example is Moudjeria in Tagant, where the Democratic Renewal Party won 7 seats to UPR’s four.