NOUAKCHOTT (Mauritania): Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi won Mauritania's historic presidential election with 52.85 per cent of the vote, the interior minister said on Monday.

Ould Abdallahi, who was backed by supporters of Mauritania's ousted dictator Maaouiya Ould Taya and who has vowed to become a “reassuring president,” beat Ahmed Ould Daddah in the second-round run-off of the poll. Ould Abdallahi, a 69-year-old former government minister, is the northwestern African country's first democratically-elected president since it won independence from France in 1960.

The election was the final stage of democratic reforms led by the military junta that ousted Ould Taya in August 2005. After a constitutional referendum in June, local and parliamentary polls were held in November and senatorial elections in January. — AFP