2013 Mauritanian Parliamentary Election Saturday Nov 23,2013

 

The elections were originally set for 1 October 2011, then delayed several times to 16 October 2011, 31 March 2012, May 2012, October 2013 and November/December 2013, due to continuous disputes between the government and opposition parties

 

The  2013 Mauritanian Parliamentary Election is scheduled for Sat Nov 23,2013 to elect 147 parliamentary seats

About a third of the country's 3.4 million population are eligible to vote


Mauritania Parliament
It is Bicameral -
National Assembly(lower House)has 95 members, elected for a 5-year term in single-seat constituencies and
Senate(Upper House)has 56 members, 53 members elected for a six-year term by munical councillors with one third renewed every two years and 3 members elected by Mauritanians abroad.


Contestants in the election

There are some 1,500 candidates from 74 parties are competing for 147 seats in parliament and the leadership of 218 local councils.

The main contestants are -

• Islamist party, Tewassoul
• Union for the Republic (UPR) and 
• People's Progressive Alliance

Islamist party, Tewassoul is the only member of the 11 party opposition alliance known as the Co-rdination of the Democratic Opposition  (COD) to be taking part

The COD's boycott has been criticised by the ruling UPR, with Ould Mohamed Lemine saying such action was unjustifiable "in view of the political and electoral reforms accomplished."