Mauritania transfers power between two elected leaders for the first time

Mauritania, torn by a history of military coups and upheavals, saw its first transfer of power between the leaders elected on Thursday when President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz was handed over to his successor.

Mohamed Ould Sheikh El Ghazouani was sworn in a conference center near the capital Nouakchott in front of a crowd of 5,000 people.

He won the June 22 elections to replace Abdel Aziz, his mentor.

"I swear to perform my duties impartially and in accordance with the law and the constitution," Ghazouani said at the ceremony.

Ghazouani, 62, is described as the "president of all". He promised to make security a priority by strengthening the army and helping poor communities.

Abdel Aziz, who took power in 2008, would have helped stabilize the country after three decades of unrest, reform the armed forces, crack down on jihadists and expand the remote areas of the vast, predominantly Muslim Sahelian state.

But the former leader has also been criticized by rights groups for restricting freedom of expression and badembly.

A conservative country with less than five million inhabitants, Mauritania is also struggling with ethnic tensions between the Arab-Berber communities and those of black African descent.

Senegalese President Macky Sall and other leaders of the Sahel G5 countries, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad, who joined Mauritania against Islamist militants, were part of the ceremony.

Ghazouani, a former general, won a 52 percent majority of the vote, although opposition parties denounced electoral fraud. After claiming that hundreds of people had been arrested as part of the crackdown on post-election protests, the opposition called for the cancellation of the result with the country's Constitutional Council.