Mauritania

Mauritania: BBC Q&A on Mauritania 2007 elections

Voters in the West African state of Mauritania went to the polls on 11 March 2007 to elect a president. Just over one million people, or about a third of the population, are eligible to vote in an election marking the final phase of a political transition that began with a bloodless coup in August 2005. That coup ended 21 years of President Maaouiya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya's authoritarian rule.