What’s at stake in Mauritania’s presidential election?

After decades of coups and military rule, the country’s young democracy will be tested in the June 29 vote.

Voters will head to polling booths across Mauritania on June 29, in elections set to be a litmus test for the northeast African country’s young and fragile democracy.

A vast but sparsely populated desert country with some 4.5 million people, Mauritania has long been beset by coups and military rule. The country has been under military dictatorship for nearly all of its 64 years since gaining independence from France in 1960. Its first peaceful power transfer came in 2019, when then-incumbent President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz chose not to run for a third term.

The country is surrounded by neighbours battling armed violence involving a range of groups, and analysts say Mauritania faces the risk of that lack of security spilling over into its territory.

Mauritania also has a legacy of racial discrimination that is still alive: Mauritania was the last country to abolish slavery in 1981, and crackdowns on activists from the Black Mauritanian population have led to tensions in recent months. Racial disparities also show up in access to education, health and land.

Some two million people are eligible to vote on Saturday. Here’s all you need to know about the coming polls: