The three opposition candidates who lose to Mohamed Ould Ghazouani in the recently held presidential elections in Mauritania lodged an appeal late on Tuesday alleging irregularities in the vote, reported Reuters.
Last week, Mauritania’s electoral commission declared the government-backed candidate Mohamed Ould Ghazouani as the election winner. Ghazouani got 52 percent of the vote, averting the need for a runoff vote, while his opponent anti-slavery campaigner Biram Dah Abeid got 18.58 percent and Mohamed Ould Boubacar, who is backed by Mauritania’s biggest Islamist party, came third with 17.85 percent of the vote.
On Wednesday, Abeid, Boubacar and fifth-placed candidate Mohamed Ould Maouloud said they had filed an appeal with the Constitutional Council on Tuesday as they believe that the results were not credible.
“We noted that there were multiple voting and many other irregularities,” Abeid said during a joint press conference in Mauritania’s capital Nouakchott.
The third-place candidate Boubacar confirmed to Reuters via text message on Wednesday that they have appealed to the Constitutional Council. He did not give any other details.
All the opposition candidates had previously voiced concern about ballot papers being printed by a private company said to be supporting for Ghazouani. They also complained about a lack of international observers.
The Constitutional Council is expected to review the appeals and make a ruling by the end of the week.
The African Union, which promotes democracy, human rights, and development on the continent, has said it was satisfied with the electoral process.
The presidential election conducted earlier this month was the first largely peaceful election held in the sparsely populated Saharan nation’s history, since independence from France in 1960, to choose a successor to a democratically elected president.
In related news, the Mauritania government has cut internet connectivity in most parts of the country, NetBlocks, an online rights group, reported on Tuesday. The outage has been linked to post-election incidents in the country.
