Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya

Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya

Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya (* 1941 , n.a. 1943 in Atar ) was President of Mauritania from 1984 to 2005 .

Taya is also known by the Arabic transliteration of his nameمعاوية ولد سيد أحمد الطايع / Muʿāwiya walad Sayyid Aḥmad aṭ-Ṭāyaʿ ,معاوية ولد سيدي أحمد الطايع / Muʿāwiya walad Sīdī Aḥmad aṭ-Ṭāyaʿ orمعاوية ولد الطايع / Muʿāwiya walad aṭ-Ṭāyaʿ .

soldier

After attending school, he worked as a primary school teacher. He joined the army in 1960 and became a lieutenant in 1961 and a captain in 1971 . The then Chief of Staff Moustapha Ould Mohamed Saleck dismissed him from the army in 1978 on charges of “incompetence”. In 1979 he was called back into the army by Defense Minister and Chief of Staff Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla. In January 1981 he took over the position of Chief of Staff , now a lieutenant colonel .

prime minister

On April 25, 1981, the President of the then military government, Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla , appointed him Prime Minister and Defense Minister. In March 1984, President Haidalla withdrew both offices from him because of alleged "incompetence", while Taya remained Chief of Staff.

president

In 1984, Colonel Taya became head of state of Mauritania after he had deposed his predecessor Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah, who was currently abroad, in a bloodless coup on December 12, 1984 under the direct leadership of French President François Mitterrand and his chief of staff, General Lacase. A phase of liberalization followed. In 1992, after a new constitution had been introduced, he organized elections with several candidates who, according to the opposition, were supposed to have been faked. The new constitution was adopted in a referendum on July 12, 1991 with 97.94% of the vote. As a candidate for his newly founded party Parti républicain démocratique et social (PRDS), he received 62.8% of the vote in the presidential elections on January 24, 1992. His PRDS represented 67 of the 79 MPs after the parliamentary elections in March. In October 1996 there were 70 and in October 2001 64 of the 81 seats. He was re-elected as president on December 12, 1997 with 90.15% of the vote, with most of the opposition parties boycotting the election. On July 6, 2003, shortly before a two-day military coup, which he narrowly escaped, he appointed Sghaïr Ould M'Bareck as the new Mauritanian Prime Minister. In the next presidential election on November 7, 2003, he won again, this time with 67.02%. Both the opposition and the international community expressed doubts.

In the Western Sahara conflict, Taya tried to maintain neutrality, but could not avoid the fact that the northern desert areas were used as a retreat by the POLISARIO guerrillas . In 1999 he decided to become the third Arab country after Egypt and Jordan to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel .

exile

On August 3, 2005, the Mauritanian military took control of the capital Nouakchott and declared the president deposed. At the time, Taya was on the way back from the funeral of the Saudi Arabian King Fahd and landed in his plane in the Nigerien capital Niamey . On August 9th, he traveled from Niger to Banjul in Gambia . From here he and his family flew to Qatar on August 22 , which granted him asylum .

Web links

• Election results in African Elections Database (English)