Election in Mauritania. The role of the military

Abstract

Mauritania might be most clearly defined as a militarized semi-presidential system in which the institution of military presidents is quite stable, while the institution of the prime minister is unstable and of lesser significance. Given the difficulty in separating the military from Mauritanian politics – described as a ‘restrictive and hegemonic pluralist authoritarian system’ (Szmolka 2011) – this chapter explores the role of the military in the Mauritanian political system through an analysis of its elections. In line with Jourde (2005), who highlighted the need to study the inner workings of the institutions in authoritarian regimes that appear to be democratic, this chapter provides an analysis of the military as decision-makers in elections (Marty 2002; N’Diaye 2006).