The Union for Democracy and Progress (Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès) is a political party in Mauritania. It was founded on June 11, 1993 by Hamdi Ould Mouknass, who previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Moktar Ould Daddah.
In the parliamentary election held on 19 and 26 October 2001, the party won 8.1% of the popular vote and 3 out of 81 seats. In the parliamentary election held on 19 November and 3 December 2006, it won 3 out of 95 seats; in the Senate election held on 21 January and 4 February 2007, it won 1 out of 56 seats.
The UDP is led by Naha Mint Mouknass, and as of early 2008 it is the only political party in Mauritania that is headed by a woman. It supported Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in the March 2007 presidential election and was part of the presidential majority following his victory. However, after the formation of the government of Prime Minister Yahya Ahmed Ould El Waghef in May 2008, the party left the presidential majority in June 2008, objecting to the composition of the government. It said that, while the opposition had been brought into the government, the UDP had been marginalized; the party also said that "the hope for change born on August 3, 2005 has been compromised", referring to the ouster of President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya on that date.
Famous quotes containing the words union, democracy and/or progress:
“We hope the day will soon come when every girl will be a member of a great Union of Unmarried Women, pledged to refuse an offer of marriage from any man who is not an advocate of their emancipation.”
—Tennessee Claflin (1846–1923)
“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed—they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!”
—Orson Welles (1915–84)
“This pond never breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, on account both of its greater depth and its having no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice.... It indicates better than any water hereabouts the absolute progress of the season, being least affected by transient changes of temperature. A severe cold of a few days’ duration in March may very much retard the opening of the former ponds, while the temperature of Walden increases almost uninterruptedly.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)