Mauritanians falling off the fence?

Today's interesting figure: 7. That is the number of Mauritanian parties that participated in the Polisario Congress, the past December, not counting the numerous individual activists, personalities and associations that turned up as well. Even if several of the parties were already well-established supporters of Polisario and its political goals, it was still a pretty big presence, with a broad range of political tendencies present. The seven parties span all the way from opposition to government, represented one of the two main presidential candidates, and included both Arab nationalist Hassani groups (culturally close to the Sahrawis) as well as Black African activist groups from the Mauritanian south, and the main party for the country's Haratine or former Black slaves.

[picture: mustafa ould badreddine of the ufp, at the polisario congress]

Present were:

• Alliance pour la justice et la démocratie/Mouvement pour rénovation (MJD/MR) -- Headed by Ibrahima Mukhtar Sarr, co-author of an important treatise on Black African rights in Mauritania in the 1980s, and nowadays an important Black African activist from the Peul/Fulani people, focused on the refugee question. [SPS]
  
• Parti mauritanien de l'union et du changement/HATEM -- Led by Saleh Ould Hannanah, who was the alleged mastermind of a failed 2003 coup attempt against Ould Tayaa, and had the backing of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic groups in the 2007 elections. [SPS]
  
• Alliance populaire progréssiste (APP) -- Anti-slavery activist Messaoud Ould Boulkheir's party, in the governing coalition. [SPS]
  
• Rassemblement des forces démocratiques (RFD) -- A main opposition party, headed by Ahmed Ould Daddah, half-brother of former president Mokhtar Ould Daddah. Ahmad Ould Daddah came a very close second in the presidential election this spring, and is generally seen as the country's main opposition leader. [UPES]
• Union des forces progressives (UFP) -- Formerly known as El Kadihine, this leftist-secularist opposition party has backed Polisario even from before the Mauritanian occupation of Western Sahara 1977-79, and worked clandestinely to support Sahrawi resistance during the war. [UPES]
  
• Front populaire (FP) -- Small party headed by Chbih Ould Cheikh Malainine, who folded in the Mauritanian presidential elections in order to align himself with former pro-Polisario president Mohamed Khouna Ould Heidallah. [UPES]
• Renouveau démocratique (RD) -- A minor pro-government political party headed by Mustapha Ould Abeidrahmane. [SPS]
  

I won't pretend to have any deeper insights in Mauritanian politics, and certainly all parties are weak as organizations. But at least the RFD, HATEM, MJD/MR, UFP and APP have some significant impact on the country's national scene, or, perhaps more importantly, are headed by important political personalities (even if none of the top leaders would personally take the trek out to the Congress). Together, they have some 41 parliamentary seats (out of 95 total) and an additional 13 senate seats (out of 56).* Then again, all politics are local, and nowhere more so than in Mauritania, where family, regional and tribal ties still dominate national politics.

[picture: moroccan-mauritanian power meet]

The Moroccan government reacted predictably, and in its traditional copycat style of political combat decided to riposte by receiving some Mauritanian parties of their own. Altogether, they pulled together five minor parties that all support the Mauritanian government: the Parti des libéraux mauritaniens (PLM), the Parti du travail et de l'unité nationale (PTUN), the Congrès populaire (CP), the Parti de la troisième génération (PTG) and the Parti de l'alliance démocratique (PAD). None of them is what you would call an overwhelming presence in the country's politics -- a total of zero seats in either parliament or senate. However, that didn't prevent them from getting good press in Morocco after their meeting with CORCAS chairman Khellihenna Ould Errachid.

(In addition to this, the government in Rabat has tended to other allies these last days: Senegal and Spain are back in from the cold.)

Mauritania will most likely stay perched on the fence in the Western Sahara question, for entirely understandable reasons, and one shouldn't read too much into mere statements of support, for either Morocco or Polisario. It's good political sense for political parties to use this issue to improve relations with the influential regimes of Morocco or Algeria, and one shouldn't forget that even without its big brother up east, Polisario is a power in its own right in northern Mauritania. Typically of Mauritanian governments, the ruling party of Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdellahi (El Mithaq, 41 parliamentary & 36 senate seats) is careful to avoid partisanship on this issue, regularly regaling both Mohamed VI and Mohamed Abdelaziz with letters of love and support. But in the context of the more liberal debate that has followed after the overthrow of the Ould Tayaa dictatorship in 2005, as well as growing Sahrawi influence in northern Mauritania, the broad range of delegations sent to the Polisario congress, compared with the relatively feeble representation at Morocco's counter-conference, could also be a sign of something more to come.

-- -- --

* ) The election results are hard to read, since many candidates from these parties ran on joint lists or in coalitions, so the final numbers could be a little bit higher.