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1 1 (March 3, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govcanw0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 01;ri E.$0 & March 3, 2020 Mauritania Political instability, military rule, and Islamist terrorist threats have been recurrent challenges in Mauritania. Yet the country recently underwent its first electoral transfer of power after a president completed two elected terms in office, and it is the only country in the Sahel region not to have experienced a deadly terrorist attack since 2011. U.S. engagement has expanded since the early 2000s, as regional security threats have grown, and as U.S. officials have come to see Mauritania as an able counterterrorism partner. U.S. firms also have interests in Mauritania's growing offshore natural gas production. Human rights concerns particularly regarding the enduring practice of hereditary slavery and military coups in 2005 and 2008 have nonetheless constrained bilateral ties. Mauritania's recent positive security trends-remarkable given the enduring crises in neighboring Mali and in Burkina Faso and Niger may be attributable to improvements in its counterterrorism capacity, de- radicalization programs, and/or a rumored non-aggression pact with regional Al Qaeda-aligned networks (see below). Mauritania may nevertheless remain vulnerable to Islamist insurgent attacks or other forms of violent unrest. Hereditary slavery and racial exclusion have shaped Mauritanian culture and history. Society is divided along racial and linguistic lines into three broad identity groups: bidane or white Arabs who have long comprised the elite, haratine or black Arabs who are slave descendants or in some cases active slaves, and Afro-Mauritanians, a collective term for sub-Saharan African ethnic groups whose native language is not Arabic. Each group reportedly comprises around one-third of the population, although there are no authoritative data. Most of Mauritania's territory is desert, aside from the relatively fertile Senegal River valley in the south. Despite the country's mineral resources and emergent energy sector, development prospects remain hampered by poor infrastructure, limited arable land, low rates of education, and regional insecurity. Since the 1970s, droughts have forced what was once a largely nomadic pastoralist population toward sedentary and/or urban life. The population of the capital, Nouakchott, rose from about 38,000 in 1970 to an estimated 1.3 million in 2020, per U.N. data nearly a third of the country's total population. President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, a retired military general, was elected in 2019 with 52% of the vote in a six- way contest. He succeeded his political patron and former military peer, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who became Mauritania's first leader to abide by term limits without being overthrown first. Abdel Aziz was first elected in 2009 after ousting the country's first democratically-elected leader in a coup, and his tenure was marked by tensions with opposition parties and human rights activists. Figure I. Mauritania at a Glance ,Siz ; Ibo t 6xte sue of FlIorid......... Population: 4 mif ion ~~~~t ... .. . .iiiii Rehgians: Yulm(otcal,0C banguages Arbi (oIcil naial UT A NN A Pula_ :, Sni r e W-4fr ai.on al, FRench <: *Nouakchott Life Expectancy! Median Age: -4.Svas2ler Adult Literacy: ae6% Femlale 43% 121017 Annual GDP Growth /Per Capital 6 ./ ;392 (2019) Key Exports iu n r, fish adfish products, -!ietokgod, coppecueo Key Imports: mahnr nqimnpetroum puodrts Top Trade Partners: Chn) wIradRliuW t pin) United Stts ermany, Jnpan, France (2017) Source: CRS graphic. Data from CIA World Factbook, International Monetary Fund (IMF, 2019); 2020 estimates unless noted. Prominent anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid who won a seat in parliament in 2018 came in second in the 2019 race with 19% of the vote. The State Department recognized Abeid as a Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Hero in 2016. Abeid's political party has been denied legal recognition; to campaign, he has registered as an independent or on other parties' tickets. The Islamist Tawassoul party did not run its own presidential candidate, instead backing a former prime minister who came in third. The party may nonetheless remain the most broad-based opposition movement with 14 out of 157 seats in parliament, the second-largest block after the ruling Union for the Republic (UPR). (A change to the constitution under Abdel Aziz dissolved the Senate, leaving the National Assembly as a unicameral parliament.) Protests erupted after the 2019 presidential results were announced. State security forces responded by banning demonstrations, detaining opposition figures, and cutting access to the internet. Ultimately, tensions eased and opposition figures were released. Ghazouani has since moved to consolidate power, including by curtailing the influence of Abdel Aziz loyalists in the UPR, sparking an unexpected power struggle. It remains to be seen whether Ghazouani will open up new space for democracy and/or address the legacy of racial and ethnic exclusion. Ghazouani and Abdel Aziz are both members of the bidane elite, as were all previous heads of state, along with the senior military officer corps. Mauritania nominally abolished slavery by decree in 1981, but the practice was not explicitly criminalized until 2007. A constitutional amendment in 2012 declared slavery a crime against humanity, and parliament adopted a new anti- '.0 K~:> gognpq goo , q g 's a X

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