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| Mauritanian opposition politician and anti-slavery campaigner Biram Dah Abeid. File photograph. Magharebia / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Cropped photograph. |
Mauritanian opposition lawmaker and anti-slavery campaigner Biram Dah Abeid has announced his resignation from parliament, citing “widespread corruption” and pledging to continue opposing the government outside the legislature.
Abeid made the announcement on Monday, 9 November, during a televised National Assembly debate on the government’s general policy statement. The prime minister attended the session.
He attributed his decision to “pervasive mismanagement and corruption fostered by the current government”, although AFP reported that he did not provide detailed particulars of the allegations.
“I will oppose the current regime through legal means, through struggle and on the ground”, Abeid said, adding that “debates within the current parliament have become pointless”.
The opposition politician criticised the administration’s performance and questioned its approach to accountability, describing corruption as “widespread yet there is not a single person in prison charged with corruption”. Local news organisation Madar also reported his resignation, saying he intended to concentrate on political activity outside parliament.
In his own remarks to the National Assembly, Prime Minister Mokhtar Ould Djay acknowledged that corruption remained a serious problem within the country and its administration, while defending the government’s efforts to address it.
According to Madar’s account of the prime minister’s address, he cited legislation, requirements for officials to declare their assets and measures concerning public procurement. He argued that the continued existence of corruption did not erase progress in tackling it.
Abeid’s announcement follows two parliamentary election victories. He first secured a seat in 2018 while in prison and won re-election in May 2023 as part of an opposition alliance. The Inter-Parliamentary Union has documented both his election during detention and his subsequent return to the National Assembly.
He has also contested the presidency three times, losing twice to the current president, Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani. In the 2024 election, Ghazouani received about 56 per cent of the vote against Abeid’s 22 per cent.
Alongside his electoral activities, Abeid leads the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement, known as IRA. The organisation campaigns against what it describes as the persistence of slavery and associated practices in Mauritania.
Abeid descends from enslaved Black Mauritanians. His parliamentary career developed in a country whose political establishment has long been dominated by people of Arab and Berber descent.
Mauritania formally abolished slavery in 1981 and criminalised the practice in 2007. The authorities have maintained that the country’s remaining problems concern slavery’s social and economic legacy, while IRA and other campaigners dispute that position and argue that enslavement continues.