Azmi Bishara, the Arab member in the Israeli Knesset, wrote in the independent Saudi owned newspaper Al Hayat on May 31: The Mauritanian electoral experience on the 11th of last March was not the result of direct action or a dramatic coup as the Arab democrats like to imagine, but the results of a reform process which started in 1991. Contrary to the common conceptions, the latest presidential elections were not the first pluralistic elections to be held in Mauritania as they were preceded by elections in 1992, 1997, and 2003. It is true that all these elections were pluralistic and had more than one candidate in them but they were not democratic and expressed the inability of the ruling elite to grasp the principle of the exchange of power as yet. All the resources of the state were used in this state, including force and bribery to influence the results of the elections. Many factions including the Islamic movement were prohibited from par t icipating in the elections.

Bishara added: The elections in 2007 were the first pluralistic and democratic presidential and parliamentary elections. But they were preceded by a long process of demands by the people along with disappointments and trial and error. The Mauritanian experience was not a popular revolution but a long and torturous reform process interspersed with more than one elections and military coups before the last military coup which led to this decisive democratic transformationÂ… What characterised this final military coup in August of 2005 is the fact that it came following the previous stumbles with conclusions concerning the importance of carrying through and expanding these partial and cosmetic reforms that didnt affect the authorities of the president and that kept beating around the bush, and with ideas about to how beat these obstacles and restrains through a comprehensive national dialogue that is unprecedented on the Arab scene.

Bishara continued: Through this dialogue, an agreement was reached about the basic rules of the democratic process and its main constitutional principle. Commitment to these principles by the politically active forces desiring to participate in the political process and share power through democratic means is a main condition for prohibiting any coup against the democratic process by the undemocratic forces inside the state itself that didnt participate in the dialogue or in reform or by those fearing that undemocratic forces might take over power through democratic means, which we call the Algeria complex. As for the Sudanese experience, which also witnessed a voluntary surrender of power by the commander of a military coup, General Siwar Al-Dihab, it was not preceded a by a long process of reform but by a dictatorship and no room was allowed for a democratic dialogue between various social and political forces to come up with an agreement over the rules of the democrati c game.

Bishara added: These are not the only reasons behind the collapse of the democratic experience in Sudan with a rescue military coupÂ…But I would like to point attention to important factors in this experience that were treated as elements of weakness but which I consider to be strengths that make Mauritania a lab test for the issues of democracy and the Arab Islamic culture: I mean here the marginality of Mauritanian concerning the primary issues of democracy which render world oil policies and Israel obstacles hindering the transformation to democracyÂ… -