Leaders of a military coup in Mauritania promised on Thursday to hold a "free and transparent" presidential election as soon as possible, defying foreign calls to reinstate the country's first freely elected president. Soldiers ousted President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi on Wednesday after he tried to dismiss military chiefs widely suspected of supporting the president's opponents in a political crisis in Africa's newest oil producer. It was Africa's first successful coup since some of the same soldiers ousted the Islamic republic's previous president three years and three days earlier, and it drew international condemnation and demands for Abdallahi's return.
But many local politicians threw their weight behind the coup. Some planned a march on Thursday in support of the "High State Council" set up by presidential guard chief Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, who led the coup after Abdallahi tried to sack him.
The 11-strong junta said it would work with Mauritanian politicians and civic groups to organise a presidential election "to renew the democratic process on a sustainable basis". "These elections, which will be organised in as short a time as possible, will be free and transparent," it said in a statement published by national news agency AMI.
The council pledged to respect treaties and other commitments binding Mauritania, which spans Arab and black Africa at the western edge of the Sahara and has close ties with many Arab states. It is also one of the few Arab countries to have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Abdallahi, who was arrested on Wednesday with his prime minister and interior minister, won elections last year after a 2005 coup, also instigated by Abdelaziz, which ended years of dictatorship under President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya. But Abdallahi had encountered a series of crises in a country where food and fuel price rises had increased hardship. He fired one government in May and another cabinet resigned in July when faced with the prospect of a vote of no confidence.