Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla - As Head of CMSN

As Head of CMSN

Haidallah became prime minister on 31 May 1979, a few days after the death in an airplane crash of the previous prime minister, Col. Ahmed Ould Bouceif, with whom he had seized power for the CMSN just a month earlier, from Col. Mustafa Ould Salek and the CRMN. In January 1980 he seized power from Ould Salek's successor as head of state, Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Louly. He continued to also hold the position of Prime Minister until December of that year, when a civilian, Sid Ahmed Ould Bneijara, was appointed to the post.

His reign was marked by severe political turbulence, as Mauritania extracted itself from the war with the Polisario Front — started by Ould Daddah in 1975 — and his regime faced a number of coup attempts and military intrigues. On March 16, 1981 a coup attempt against Haidalla failed,. Haidalla accused Morocco of being behind the coup, which Morocco denied, and in the next month Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya was appointed Prime Minister. Another attempted coup was allegedly sponsored by Libya.

In March 1984, Haidallah took the office of Prime Minister again, replacing Taya, in a move to strengthen his personal power. On December 12, however, Taya ousted Haidallah in a coup while the latter was out of the country. Haidalla had been at a Franco-African Summit in Burundi and learned of the coup in Brazzaville, during his return to Mauritania, from Denis Sassou Nguesso, the president of the Republic of the Congo. Haidallah returned to Mauritania anyway and was arrested at the airport in Nouakchott; he was eventually released in December 1988. Taya promised to install democracy, but his rule was considered dictatorial by many; he was deposed by a military coup in 2005.