NOUAKCHOTT - The former head of a military junta who ruled Mauritania from 2005 until 2007 announced Saturday his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election.
"I am a candidate in the presidential election," Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall said his home in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott.
His declaration came two days after military rulers and opposition leaders in the poor west African nation signed an agreement to end months of political crisis following a coup last August.
The accord involves: the resignation of Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, Mauritania's first democratically elected president who was toppled in the coup; the formation of a national unity government; and a presidential election on July 18.
Colonel Vall seized power himself in a coup in 2005 but lived up to his promise to stand aside after two years and hold Mauritania's first fully democratic elections.
He poured scorn on last year's coup by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, his cousin and former ally with whom he has reputedly fallen out, saying it was "wrong and there was no reason for it."
Describing his transitional 2005-2007 rule as a success, he said "after 15 months there was this accident, this coup which has provoked a particularly dangerous situation in our country."
The colonel did not mention Abdel Aziz by name but insisted: "My candidacy is not a candidacy against anyone, against the ambition of anyone, against the personality of anyone."
Vall, who was wearing a traditional white boubou robe, dismissed suggestions he would struggle due to not having a party machine behind him, but said he was open to offers.
"I have the largest political party in the country, that is the Mauritanian people.
"If the coup had not happened, I would probably no longer be interested in public affairs," he said, vowing to "work to build a reconciled country that is politically and economically viable and stable."
Thursday's accord, reached after marathon talks mediated by international observers, effectively postponed the election the ruling junta had planned for Saturday.
All the major parties will run candidates in the new election. In the original one, Abdel Aziz had been running at the head of a pro-coup party against three little-known candidates.
A leading figure in the anti-coup bloc urged the National Front for the Defence of Democracy (FNDD) to unite behind a sole candidate for the election. So far no FNDD candidate has been declared.
"The Front can, if it remains united, make the other candidates dance to its tune and win it," Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, who is also president of the National Assembly, told AFP.
He admitted that General Abdel Aziz was the massive favourite at the moment because he had been campaigning since he seized power 10 months ago.
Hours before signing Thursday's deal the junta leader released Mauritania's former prime minister, Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf, who had spent six months in detention in the wake of the coup.
Ould Ahmed Waghf, ousted by the putschists in August, walked out of Nouakchott's biggest prison, Dar Naim, and was greeted by a large crowd. His release was one of the conditions laid down by the opposition to end the crisis.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who was closely involved in the negotiation process from the start, presided over Thursday's signing of the agreement at the capital's convention centre.
Other signatories included witnesses from the international community, including representatives from the African Union, the European Union, the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
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