Mauritania 1999

In 1999, the population of Mauritania was estimated to be around 2.7 million people. The economy of the country was largely based on fishing, animal husbandry and mining. The government of Mauritania had strong diplomatic ties with other African nations, as well as with France and the United States. The politics of Mauritania in 1999 were dominated by a coalition government led by President Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya. During this time, the country signed several agreements with France aimed at strengthening its economic ties with Europe. In addition to this, there were also ongoing debates about human rights and minority rights in the country. See ethnicityology for Mauritania in the year of 2018.

Yearbook 1999

Mauritania 1999

Mauritania. Visit Countryaah official website to get information about the capital city of Mauritania. The municipal elections at the end of January meant a success for the ruling party Parti Républicain Démocratique et Social (PRDS). However, the election result was annulled in about ten electoral districts due to irregularities. It was the first time a Mauritanian government party recognized the existence of electoral fraud. All major opposition parties boycotted the election.

  • Also see Abbreviationfinder.org to see the acronym of MRT which stands for Mauritania and other definitions of this 3-letter abbreviation.

Map of Mauritania Nouakchott in English

In the capital Nouakchott, only one in five voters voted, but in some parts of the countryside, turnout was as high as 90%.

At the beginning of the year, there was information that Mauritania received nuclear waste from Israel, which was denied by the authorities. In April, the independent Le Calame was banned from publishing for three months. No official reason was stated, but it was speculated that the newspaper’s reports on the nuclear waste issue were crucial. Mauritania resumed diplomatic relations with Israel at the end of October. A week later, the contact with Iraq was broken. Mauritania accused Baghdad of trying to initiate student protests against the Nouakchott government. In connection with this, a political party with ties to the Iraqi government was banned.

Politics

The nineties were marked, in domestic politics, by the democratic turning point of July 1991 (launch of the Constitution), by the political hegemony of the party of President MOS Taya, the PRDS (Parti R é publicain D é mocratique et Social), and by the persistence of strong inter-ethnic tensions.

At the end of 1992, following the devaluation of the national currency and the consequent increase in the cost of living, social protests erupted which continued the following year. The introduction of an integration of wages and salaries (January 1993), however, seemed to allow a pacification, which in the local elections of February 1994 rewarded, with a new electoral success, the PRDS (which gained control of 172 out of 208 districts). In 1995, however, social protest for the authoritarian and repressive policy of the government exploded again in the country which, in addition to hitting every manifestation of dissent of black minorities (denying, against the constitutional dictate itself, the recognition of their associations), since the end of 1993 it had also been directed against Islamic fundamentalist groups. In a climate of serious irregularities, denounced and boycotted by the opposition, legislative elections were held in October 1996, which were a clear success for the PRDS. In the presidential elections of December 1997, Taya was re-elected with 90.2% of the votes, with a turnout that reached, despite the boycott of the opposition, 73.8% of those entitled to vote.

Taya’s victory marked the success of an authoritarian policy aimed at maintaining, thanks also to complex electoral strategies, the traditional network of tribal, regional and ethnic obedience and, therefore, a social hierarchy that saw the Moorish-Berber majority dominate the political scene and economy of the country at the expense of the black ethnic groups, to a very large extent still confined to a state of poverty and marginalization. Also in December, Taya replaced CAOM Khouna, prime minister since October 1996, with MLO Guig, who, with an initiative unusual for an Islamic state, placed three women in his new cabinet. The substantial immobility of the political framework was reflected in the return of Khouna to the head of the government (April 1998) and in the victory of the PRDS in the administrative elections of January 1999.

In foreign policy, Mauritania re-established diplomatic relations with Kuwait in 1993, established diplomatic relations with Israel (1995), strengthened ties with France, while from the end of 1994, together with Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia, participated in the birth of the NATO Mediterranean Cooperation Group (1997), of which it has been a member ever since.

Nouakchott

Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania in West Africa; 958,400 residents (2013). The city is located on the Atlantic coast in the border zone between the Saharan sand desert and the annual flooded salt lakes on the coast. It became a cure. 1957 and designated as the capital of Mauritania’s independence in 1960. In 1969, the population was only 20,000, but during the drought years in the Sahel, refugees flocked to the city, and it has now grown to the edge of the salt lakes, and slum has spread for miles along the precipitous roads.

In the 1980’s, with Chinese assistance, a deep-water port was built 10 km south of the city; it has attracted some trade and industry, but also slum construction. Nouakchott’s center, with low houses and wide avenues, gives a mixed Franco-Arabic impression, while the omnipresent sand tells of the proximity of the desert.

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