Managing pluralist elections in an "imposed" democracy. The example of the October 2001 elections in Mauritania Alain Antil, L'Ouest Saharien, No. 4, 2004, p. 91-111
In sub-Saharan Africa, exogenous – and particularly western – forms of political action and structure, like the nation-state or the political representatives through universal suffrage, have become grafted on the societies with their own forms of political expression and production of power. We attempt to observe how these political forms – local and foreign – work together in the case of Islamic Republic of Mauritania.
The strategies developed by Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya, in place since 1984, for retaining power and more particularly to win the elections, offer a certain number of responses. An analysis of the elections of November 2001, permits in particular an understanding of the mechanisms at work.Pluralist elections force the state elite to demonstrate the popular basis of their power. The elections therefore revive tribal structures in society. Where this mode doesn’t operate, in the cities, the elite is forced to make use of a toolkit of measures aimed at containing opposition. While Ould Taya is alive, the ruling powers will not be defeated through the ballot box, because that is not the function of elections in Mauritania, a 'democracy without democrats'.