NOUAKCHOTT
Incumbent President Mohamed Ould Abdel-Aziz emerged as the winner in the country's presidential polls with around 82% of the vote, which secured him a second five-year term, the country's electoral commission announced late Sunday.
Abdel-Aziz garnered 575,995 votes (81.89 percent), Director of the Electoral Operations at the Mauritania's Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) Mohameden Ould Sidi said in a televised speech.
Turnout in the Saturday vote stood at 56.4 percent of Mauritania's 1.3 million eligible voters, he added.
Mauritania's opposition parties had earlier announced their boycott of the vote. The opposition Al-Wiam Democratic and Social Party, however, bucked this trend and said it would participate.
Having ruled since 2009, Abdel-Aziz, a former army general, played a key role in two military coups that toppled Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya and elected Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in 2005 and 2008 respectively.
He, however, would not be able to run in the next presidential elections in the light of the constitution, which limits the terms a president can have in office to two.
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