Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz in the context of "2019 Mauritanian presidential election"

Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast, Mali to the east and southeast, and Senegal to the southwest. By land area Mauritania is the 11th-largest country in Africa and the 28th-largest in the world; 90% of its territory is in the Sahara desert. Most of its population of some 4.3 million live in the temperate south of the country; roughly a third of the population is concentrated in the capital and largest city, Nouakchott, on the Atlantic coast.

The country's name derives from Mauretania, the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It extended from central present-day Algeria to the Atlantic. Berbers occupied what is now Mauritania by the beginning of the 3rd century AD. Groups of Arab tribes migrated to this area in the late 7th century, bringing with them Islam, Arab culture, and the Arabic language. In the early 20th century, Mauritania was colonized by France as part of French West Africa. It achieved independence in 1960. However, the country has since experienced recurrent coups and periods of military dictatorship. The 2008 Mauritanian coup d'état was led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who won subsequent presidential elections in 2009 and 2014. He was succeeded by General Mohamed Ould Ghazouani following the 2019 elections, in what was considered the country's first peaceful transition of power since independence. Mauritania has a poor human rights record, particularly because of its perpetuation of slavery; the 2018 Global Slavery Index estimates there are about 90,000 slaves in the country (or 2.1% of the population).

Presidential elections were held in Mauritania on 18 July 2009. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who led the 2008 coup d'état, won a narrow first-round majority in the election, according to official results. A second round, if necessary, would have been held on 1 August 2009.

Following the coup which deposed President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi on 6 August 2008, the new junta (the High Council of State) promised that a presidential election would be held "as soon as possible". The election was subsequently scheduled for 6 June 2009.

Presidential elections were held in Mauritania on 21 June 2014, with a second round planned for 5 July if no candidate received more than 50% of the vote. The result was a first round victory for incumbent President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of the Union for the Republic, who received 82% of the vote. Most of the opposition parties boycotted the election.

Mohamed Ould Cheikh Mohamed Ahmed Ould Ghazouani (Arabic: محمد ولد الشيخ محمد أحمد ولد الغزواني; born 4 December 1956), also known as Ghazouani and Ould Ghazouani, is a Mauritanian politician and retired army general who has been the 9th President of Mauritania since 2019, and the 22nd chairperson of the African Union from February 2024 until February 2025.

Ghazouani is a former general-director of National Security and former chief of staff of the Armed Forces of Mauritania (2008–2018). He was defense minister of Mauritania from October 2018 to March 2019. At that time a close ally of his predecessor Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, he was elected president of Mauritania on 22 June 2019 following the 2019 presidential election. His victory in the 2019 presidential election was presented as having been the country's first peaceful transition of power since independence.

This is a list of heads of state of Mauritania since the country gained independence from France in 1960 to the present day.

A total of nine people have served as head of state of Mauritania (not counting one acting president). Additionally, one person, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, has served on two non-consecutive occasions.

The High Council of State (Arabic: المجلس الأعلى للدولة; French: Haut Conseil d’État) was the supreme political body of Mauritania. It served as the country's interim government following the coup d'état which ousted the President, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi on August 6, 2008. It was led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. After seizing power, it quickly pledged to hold elections "in the shortest possible period". A few days after seizing power, Ould Abdel Aziz named Mauritanian Ambassador to Belgium and the European Union, Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf, as Prime Minister.

On April 15, 2009, Ould Abdel Aziz resigned as President of the High Council of State in order to stand as a candidate in the upcoming presidential election. President of the Senate, Ba Mamadou Mbaré, succeeded him as head of state in an interim capacity, becoming the first black leader of Mauritania. The election took place on July 18, 2009, and Ould Abdel Aziz was elected President with 52.58% of the votes. He was sworn in on August 5, 2009.

The Union for the Republic (Arabic: الاتحاد من أجل الجمهورية; French: Union pour la République, UPR) was a political party in Mauritania. The party was formed on 5 May 2009 by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz after he resigned from the military, to run for President of Mauritania. Aziz resigned as chairman of the party on 2 August 2009 after winning the presidential election, as the President of Mauritania cannot be a member of any party. The party also won 13 of the 17 seats up for re-election to the Mauritanian Senate in 2009, giving the UPR control of a total of 38 of the 53 Senate seats.

As a result of the 2018 parliamentary election, UPR became the largest political party in Mauritania. Four major political parties merged into the Union for the Republic after the election. On October 18, 2018, a month after the previous legislative election, the Unionist Party for the Construction of Mauritania voted to merge itself into the UPR. On the 21st, Choura for Development adopted the same decision, while centrist El Wiam, which used to be on the moderate opposition, did the same on the 29th. The last party to merge into the UPR was the National Pact for Democracy and Development, which was the previous ruling party from 2007 until 2008's coup. PNDD-ADIL merged into the UPR on December 27, 2019.