Mauritania's opposition political parties are expressingdissatisfaction after the military rulers refused to set a timetable forelections or guarantee they will not stand as candidates. The parties say themilitary junta has reneged on its promise to return the country to democraticrule after ousting the country's only democratically elected President SidiMohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in a coup de'tat. The United States, the EuropeanUnion as well as the African Union have unanimously condemned the coup de'tatand called for an immediate return to constitutional rule.
The U.S hasfrozen around $25 million in military and development aid to Mauritania warningthat much bigger sums of future aid is at stake. Kabiru Mato is a politicalscience professor at Nigeria's University of Abuja. He tells reporter PeterClottey that there is need for the military junta to announce their plans forthe future.
"What I find ratherinteresting and repulsive is the failure to announce to the people ofMauritania what programs they have in terms of a new transition time table thatwould see to an early election so that a democratic government could be electedin Mauritania. But again in another breadth that is generally part of themilitary tradition whenever they take over power. They don't easily respondperhaps to the aspirations of the people or the political class unless ofcourse they are under tremendous pressure to be able to do that," Mato pointedout.
He urged Mauritanians to putmore pressure on the military junta to return the country to constitutionalrule.
"I think what is importantnow is for the political establishment in Mauritania to put a lot of diplomaticefforts, especially the African Union to not only isolate the new militarygovernment, but force the government to make preparation for an earlyelection," he said.
Mato said the military juntashould be forcefully impressed upon to hand over power to civilian rule.
"The African Union must gobeyond simple political rhetoric. It must also contend with tremendousdiplomatic pressure on the new government, and there must be a very clearpicture showing to the new government that the Union would not obviouslyrecognize the new military leadership. They would be isolated and Africans mayeven contemplate a possible blockade or certain forms of diplomatic embargoesand so on and so forth as a strategy to show the new military rulers inMauritania that it is serious. If it doesn't go beyond simple politicalstatement, the soldiers would certainly remain unchecked and they will continueto remain in power without necessarily perhaps bringing up an acceptable timetable that would see their immediate exit out of power," Mato noted.
He said Mauritania has had ahistory of dictators since the country's independence.
"The dominant feature inMauritania today is poverty and therefore poverty will always have a verycentral role to play in determining the pattern of political system that youhave in that country. And remember that the government that was overthrown bythese soldiers was the first democratically elected government in that countrysince its political independence in the early 1960s. So, the problem here hasto do with the fact that the political culture of the people themselves is thatwhich is closely and neatly tied to dictatorial tendencies and ruler ship," hesaid.
Mato said the country hasalso been destabilized for a long time after its independence.
"Another thing also is thatMauritania has a history of political instability over time. So, the concept ofdemocracy as propounded by the western liberal theory is therefore not verymuch grounded with the people of Mauritania. But then the fundamental questionhere has to do with the fact that there has to be very conscious politicalelite that will apparently mobilize the citizenry towards waging a united frontagainst military dictatorship," Mato pointed out.