Mauritania: Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, first democratically elected president, has died

Former Mauritanian President Sidi Mohamed ould Cheikh Abdallahi.

(Photo: Reuters)

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The former Mauritanian head of state Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, first president of the country democratically elected in 2007 and overthrown by a putsch the following year, died on the night of November 22 to 23 in a clinic in the capital Nouakchott, after a long illness.

A three-day national mourning has been observed since November 23 in the morning throughout the country.

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With our correspondent in Nouakchott,

Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi succeeded Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall in 2007 after the transition period following the coup d'état which overthrew Maaouiya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya in 2005.

President for sixteen months

The first democratically elected

 president after the 2007 presidential election, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was head of state for only sixteen months. 

, he was overthrown by a military coup initiated and executed by his particular chief of staff, General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

He was then placed under house arrest in the village of Lemden, about 200 kilometers from Aleg, the capital of his native region. 

The Mauritanian army had contributed to its accession to power after the departure of the military junta which had deposed the regime of the former head of state, Maaouiya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, on August 3, 2005. But Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi had refused to serve as a puppet to the generals who wanted to interfere in all the decisions he made.

A real standoff had opposed him to the most determined of the high-ranking officers, General 

.

Before being President of the Republic, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi had been a minister in the governments of

 from 1971 to 1978. He also belonged to the Taya government between 1986 and 1989.  

► To read also: Mauritania: "The youth aspires to more democracy"

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• Mauritania

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