Diplomatist Magazine Diplomatist March 2019

COVER STORY MAURITANIA Presidential Election: Expected between April and June Another noteworthy transition on the continent will be in Mauritania when the West African country selects a new leader to replace incumbent President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz who is stepping down after two terms, as required by Mauritania’s constitution. He will do so despite many in his party encouraging him to remain for a third term. It would also mark a signiﬁ cant departure from Ould Abdel Aziz’s entry onto the political arena as the force behind the 2005 and 2008 coups. (He was subsequently elected in non-competitive polls in 2009 and again in 2014.) As Ould Abdel Aziz’s Union pour la république ruling party commands a dominant parliamentary majority, observers speculate that Ould Abdel Aziz could still wield considerable power from behind the scenes after the vote. Ould Abdel Aziz is supporting Defence Minister Mohamed Ould Ghazouani as the ruling party’s presidential candidate in 2019. Moreover, the constitution allows the 62-year-old president to run again in 2024. Nonetheless, Ould Abdel Aziz’s willingness to work within Mauritania’s ﬂ edgling democratic process is a notable departure from other African leaders of recent years who have maneuvered to evade term limits. MOZAMBIQUE General Election: October 15 Presidential, parliamentary, and provincial l elections are expected to take place in Mozambique e in a complex political environment. Building on a 2016 ceaseﬁ re, peace talks between the ruling FRELIMO party and long-time rebel and opposition party RENAMO aim to negotiate an end to a low-intensity conﬂ ict that resurfaced in 2013. The elections also take place before a backdrop of perceptions of political exclusion by opposition parties, especially RENAMO, which will be contesting its ﬁ rst election without long-time leader Afonso Dhlakama, who died in 2018. FRELIMO has controlled the presidency and dominated Parliament since the end of the country’s brutal civil war in 1992. This has generated strong grievances and periodic violence since 2013, over the lack of genuine participation. President Filipe Nyusi is competing for a second and ﬁ nal term. Securing a peace deal with RENAMO and integrating its remaining ﬁ ghters into the armed forces will allow him to shore up stability in RENAMO’s northern and central strongholds. The 2019 elections will provide a test of whether the government is committed to building a more inclusive (and stable) democratic process. In this way, FRELIMO faces the challenge of other African liberation movements that have struggled to become genuine governing bodies advancing the needs of all citizens. The answer to these questions will go a long way in shaping the depth of solidarity Mozambicans feel as they face a series of new security, development, and political challenges while renewing international engagement. BOTSWANA General Election: October One of Africa’s strongest democracies and arguably, its most stable, will have its s next general elections in October. Botswana’s stability is closely linked to its succession process, the precedent of which was established by Festus Mogae in 2008 at the end of his second term. President Mokgweetsi Masisi will contest in the October elections as part of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). 34 • Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 7 • Issue 3 • March 2019, Noida

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