Mustafa Ould Salek

Mustafa Ould Salek ( Arabic المصطفى ولد محمد السالك, DMG al-Muṣṭafā walad Muḥammad as-Sālik ; * 1936 in Kiffa ; † December 18, 2012 in Paris ) was head of state of Mauritania from 1978 to 1979 .

soldier

Mustafa Ould Salek comes from Kiffa in the Assaba region in the south of the country. After finishing school he was trained as a teacher in Dakar .

After Mauritania gained independence in 1960, he joined the army and was Chief of Staff from 1968 to 1969. He received part of his military training in France . Since 1970 he was governor of several cities, at times in the city of Atar in the Adrar region northeast of Nouakchott . In March 1978 he was reappointed Chief of Staff. Because of a disagreement with President Moktar Ould Daddah over the Western Sahara conflict , in which the Mauritanian army was in serious trouble, he led a bloodless military coup on July 10, 1978 . Moktar was arrested afterwards.

president

As chairman of the military junta , Comité Militaire de Redressement National (CMRN), Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Ould Salek became head of state and government. He was also unable to cope with the country's military and economic problems and resigned as head of government in April 1979. As head of state, he was overthrown on June 3, 1979 by another coup.

Further career

Mustafa Ould Salek was imprisoned from 1981 to 1984. On January 24, 1992, he ran unsuccessfully in presidential elections, in which Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya , who has been in power since 1984, prevailed. Mustafa Ould Salek received 4.25% of the vote. The fairness of these elections was generally considered to be rather low.

Web links

• Election results in African Elections Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Death report in the newspaper El Watan (French)