Mauritanians have voted to abolish their senate and alter their national flag by referendum, the electoral commission announced on Sunday, in a clear victory for President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz the day after the vote.
While turnout was 53.73 percent, 85 percent of voters on Saturday declared “Yes” to changes put to a referendum when they were defeated in the Senate in March, despite fierce criticism from a boycott movement that called mass protests during campaigning.
Abdel Aziz, who last week described the senate as “useless and too costly,” has said the move to abolish the governing body would improve governance by introducing more local forms of lawmaking.
Mauritania referendum – Counting under way in controversial vote (2:26)
But the boycott movement drew broad political support from figures as diverse as religious conservatives and anti-slavery activists.
Members of opposition parties spearheading the boycotters held a press conference on Sunday during which they denounced an “electoral farce which has given way to open-air fraud,” adding that people “had clearly rejected the constitutional amendments.”
They said they would not recognise the results of the referendum, having previously claimed the government would rig the vote.
The most contentious issue surrounding the vote, given that just one opposition party campaigned for “No” while the boycott campaign attracted several parties and civil society movements, was the turnout.
Turnout was just 36 percent in the capital, Nouakchott, but was much higher in the remote West African nation’s rural areas, at times hitting 80 percent, the electoral commission said.
The boycott movement held several protests attracting thousands of supporters, but were also prevented from demonstrating by the security forces, who on Thursday shut down several planned rallies close to the capital with tear gas and beat protesters back with batons.
The UN Human Rights Office said on Thursday that “protest leaders were reportedly beaten up and a number of them were arrested” during campaign rallies in the last few weeks, urging the government to ensure fair and credible elections.
Around 1.4 million Mauritanians were eligible to vote and celebrations were expected from the
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