Moktar Ould Daddah - Background

Background

Daddah was born to an important marabout family of the Ouled Birri tribe in Boutilimit, Mauritania. As a law student in Paris, he graduated as the first Mauritanian to hold a university degree. On his return to Mauritania in the late 1950s, Daddah joined the centre-left Progressive Mauritanian Union, and was elected President of the Executive Council. In 1959, however, he established a new political party, the Mauritanian Regrouping Party. In the last pre-independence legislative elections held later that year, his party won every seat in the National Assembly, and he was appointed Prime Minister.

He was known for his ability to establish a consensus among different political parties, as well as between the White Moors, Black Moors and Black Africans, Mauritania's three main ethnic groups. The balanced representation of different ethnic and political groups in his government won the confidence of the French authorities, who granted independence to Mauritania under his leadership in 1960. Daddah was named Acting President of the new republic, and was confirmed in office in the first post-independence election in August 1961.