Government Government of Mauritania President Mauritania
Description of Work:
Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was born in 1938 in the town of Aleg in southern Mauritania. He received his primary education in Aleg and his secondary education in Rosso, Mauritania and then at the Ecole Normale William Ponty in Senegal, and later receieved a degree in economics in Grenoble, France.

Returning to Mauritania, Abdallahi became Director of the Plan, working on the Second Plan for Economic and Social Development, and was then appointed to the government as a minister in September 1971 by President Moktar Ould Daddah. During the following seven years he served in a series of positions in the government, including that of Minister of State for the National Economy.  After the ouster of Daddah in July 1978, Abdallahi was imprisoned until 1979.

From 1982 to late 1985 Abdallahi lived in Kuwait where he worked as an adviser to the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development.

Returning to Mauritania from Kuwait, he served in the government under Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya from early 1986 to September 1987. Abdallahi fell out with Taya however, and was imprisoned for alleged corruption while serving as Minister of Fishing, spending six months under house arrest.

From September 1989 until June 2003 he lived in Niger, working again for the Kuwait Fund as an adviser.

Abdallahi announced his candidacy for president on July 4, 2006. The elections were the final stage of a democratic handover to civilian rule by a military junta which took power in a 2005 coup, and Abdallahi was rumored to be a "puppet" candidate of the military junta.

In the first round of the election, held on March 11, 2007, Abdallahi took first place with 24.80% of the vote. A second round was therefore planned for March 25 between Abdallahi and the second place candidate, Ahmed Ould Daddah. Following the second round of polling, interior minister Mohamed Ahmed Ould Mohamed Lemine declared Abdallahi the winner on March 26, saying that he won 52.85% of the vote. Abdallahi won 10 out of the country's 13 regions. He took office on April 19 to become Mauritania's first democratically elected president since the country gained independence from France in 1960.

Mr Abdallahi vowed during his campaign that remaining cases of slavery would be severely punished, and that former slaves and their descendants would benefit from positive discrimination. He also promised to promote national unity, encourage job creation and to improve health, education and infrastructure. Observers have suggested that among his challenges will be to ensure that the military, who seized power before mapping out the route to civilian rule, keep out of politics.

Shortly after taking office he said he would take a pay cut of 25% because of lower than expected oil revenues.


(Information found at wikipedia.com and bbc.co.uk)