MAURITANIA'S GOVERNANCE EPITOMIZES a cycle all too evident throughout sub-Saharan Africa. A civilian government, espousing the liberal democratic principles inherited from the colonial regime, came to power on the eve of independence. After it had ruled for nearly a generation, during which time the expectations born at independence remained largely unfulfilled and government became increasingly capricious and corrupt, a military regime toppled the civilian government and suspended the Constitution. In the following years, a succession of military rulers, each promising to end the corruption, abuse of authority, and economic waste of earlier regimes, proved as unwilling and inept as their civilian predecessor at ensuring the territorial integrity of the state, achieving national unity, and fostering economic development in the face of severe environmental challenges. The subsequent ascendancy in 1987 of what appeared to be a reformist government, albeit military, demonstrated for the first time Mauritania's growing understanding of the limits of government as this new regime grappled with the problem of adapting the longstanding cultural values of a very poor society to the needs of a modern developing state.
Prior to independence, Mauritania served as a bridge between the Maghrib and West Africa, with strong cultural links to the former and equally strong economic and administrative ties to the latter. Like Sudan and Chad, which also link Arab North Africa with black Africa, Mauritania suffered internal social and political problems as cultures collided. The potential for conflict was strengthened by the proliferation of particularist-regional political parties before independence. These parties, composed exclusively of either ArabBerbers (Maures) or one of several black ethnic groups and advocating union with Arab Morocco or with black Mali, tended to aggravate existing cleavages.
To overcome the structural problems intrinsic to the Mauritanian polity, its first president, Moktar Ould Daddah, resorted to one-party rule with a strong executive branch. Although the Constitution of 1961 called for some power-sharing between the president and the legislature, the National Assembly, in practice, routinely supported presidential initiatives, and government remained highly centralized. Daddah's ill-fated participation in the Western Sahara conflict and the resulting ruin of the Mauritanian economy led to a military coup in July 1978. Daddah was detained and later exiled, and his government was replaced by the eighteen-member Military Committee for National Recovery (Comité Militaire de Redressement National--CMRN) with Lieutenant Colonel Mustapha Salek as president.
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