afrol News / Le Calame, 23 May - Mauritania's political landscape is changing rapidly ahead of the March 2007 election, with parties struggling for funds and thirsting for power. Five political parties out of Mauritania's "eight big" party grouping have taken an initiative to form a new movement with one single programme and, if necessary, drawing up common lists at the upcoming polls. Observers deplore the game of tactics that is taking focus away from the political transition.
In addition, the US-based organisation National Democratic Institute (NDI), following a request from certain groups, has taken first steps to reach a formula of consensus on how political parties can be financed before the elections. Representatives of Mauritanian parties met with an NDI expert to discuss the issue on Thursday.
Mauritania has been living through a political transition towards democracy since Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall overthrew the authoritarian regime of President Maaouya Ould Taya in August last year. Interim President Vall, who has promised not to stand as presidential candidate, has opened up the country for free debates and political activities and preparations for the March 2007 elections are already in progress.
As the many electoral consultations approach, alliances and counter-alliances follow another within the national political scene, where everybody want to make sure to know the concepts and motives of the others. Whereas up to now, Mauritania's post-coup political landscape was fragmented into three sets - the group of the "great eight" (G8); the Bloc of Parties for Change (BPC); and its dissidents, which are grouped in another alliance - during the last week a new formation is seeing the light of day.
The parties APP, FP, Sawab, Temam and RD - all from the group "G8" - launched an initiative favouring the creation of a "new pool" of parties. The objective of this "pool" is, according to the President of the APP, among other possibilities, "to arrive to a unified programme during upcoming consultations and to form a joint list at the occasion [of the March elections]."
A number of parties are invited into this new initiative. The Secretary-General of the AJD - whose party has been invited to take part at the initial meeting that is to formalise the creation of the future "pool" - said that political leaders could find it beneficial to gather within a broad coalition, because "no formation going individually can win the elections." However, he adds that invitations should not have been sent to singular parties, but to the groupings, which would have made it possible to "reach everyone".
But what surprises about this initiative, is that it does not even have the support of the three other parties (UFP, RFD and UDP) of the "G8" group. Some observers understand this rather as the beginning of the fragmentation of the G8 group and a revamping of Mauritania's political scene. Better, some say, the initiative only aims at excluding the RFD, whose leader, Ahmed Ould Daddah, was said to behave "scornfully" towards other political formations.
For Messaoud Ould Boulkheïr, leader of the slave-descendant APP movement within the G8, the new initiative is addressed to everyone and does not aim at excluding anybody. Mr Boulkheïr however recognises that certain parties still have not reacted to the invitations that were sent them.
The question still remains on how an initiative aiming at a greater coalition could have originated without the knowledge of some of the parties being members of the group. The step illustrates the fragility of the dialogue among party executives and that existing alliances do not reflect much more than tactics, aiming at making the other believe there is a real will to share power in a future government. Alliances become random and there is a vacuum of political content.
This situation also explains the lack of coordination as Mauritania's political leaders are searching for a mode to finance political parties to challenge the government, and the absence of common steps to sensitise voters regarding the upcoming constitutional referendum, in spite of the many dialogue channels created since the coup on 3 August last year.
Since the rivalling Mauritanian leader could not reach an agreement, some of the parties called on the NDI to seek a consensual solution to the party financing problem. The initiative still is unclear and abstract, according to Gregory Houel, NDI representative residing in Nouakchott, the Mauritanian capital. But Mr Houel on Thursday had called for an NDI expert to be flown in from Morocco to aid the process.
According to the Mauritanian Ministry of the Interior, there has been little progress in this issue. The dialogue over party funding has been left "at the discretion" of the recipients, in line with a united proposal by the parties after the coup. Ministry officials confirmed that they will not make any proposals in stead of the parties, but insisted that there could not be any party financing without an agreement among the latter.
An agreement on funding is steadily growing more complicated as there are now almost 50 political parties in Mauritania, although there until recently only were 35 parties registered regularly with the Ministry of the Interior.
The question arises whether the new movement launched by the five parties will change the situation and whether the NDI could become a saviour to the political community of Mauritania, where dialogue and political content seem to have broken down. While waiting for a solution, it seems that money and the thirst for power are most likely to overshadow real debates on the country's future, which should be the principal concern of politicians during Mauritania's current period of transition towards democracy.
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