Newsletter No. 322
News-Analysis
July 6, 2006

 

JAPAN IN MAURITANIA -- ELECTIONS, OIL, AND THE SHADOW OF CHINA

On June 25th, the Mauritanian people went to the polls to vote on a constitutional referendum on a return to democracy after the generally-popular August 3rd military coup of last year against the authoritarian regime of Maaouya Ould Sid Ahmad Taya. One of the main elements of the amendment plan was to give future presidents a five-year term, which could only be repeated once. The peaceful transition of power has dogged Mauritanian politics for many years. An estimated 76% of the population turned out for the vote, and almost 97% approved the constitutional changes.

MOFA, which had provided financial support for this referendum, made the following statement in response to these results on June 30th: “The Government of Japan welcomes the fact that the national referendum to amend the constitution in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania was implemented peacefully without especial turmoil on June 25 (Sun) as an important step in the democratization process of the country. The Government of Japan hopes that the series of national assembly and presidential elections to be held from this autumn to the first half of next year will be implemented as scheduled, in accordance with the democratization process already decided, and Mauritania will be transformed into a democratic government.”

Additionally, the news now comes that Muhammad Ali Ould Sidi Muhammad, the Mauritanian Energy and Petroleum Minister, was meeting with METI Minister Toshihiro Nikai and other Japanese officials in Tokyo yesterday, and requested the involvement of Japanese oil companies in developing Mauritania’s newly discovered oil resources, promising to provide technical information to the Japanese side. In response, Nikai pledged to send a public-private mission to Mauritania to investigate the possibilities for joint efforts in oil development. Mauritania currently produces about 40,000 bpd.

As noted in Shingetsu Newsletter No. 255, Mauritania began producing oil in April and China bought all of it that month. In fact, Chinese Premier Jiabao Wen made an extended tour of Africa last month, and this has been eliciting an increased amount of comment about the Chinese role in Africa generally. With the prospect of Japanese involvement in Mauritanian oil, the stage would appear to be set for more Japan-China energy resource rivalry to be played out in this Islamic Republic.