Nouakchott (AFP) - Mauritanian opposition MP and anti-slavery human rights activist Biram Dah Abid announced on Monday his resignation from Parliament in protest against "rampant corruption" in the country.

Published on: 10/11/2026 - 08:04

Abeid ran for the presidential elections three times, and lost twice to current President Mohamed Ould Sheikh Ghazouani, who won the 2024 elections by obtaining 56 percent of the votes, compared to 22 percent for Abeid.

In a plenary session of Parliament on Monday, broadcast on television, Abeid said that his resignation came in protest against “the rampant mismanagement and corruption sponsored by the current government,” without providing extensive details about his accusations.

Abid said, "I will oppose the current regime through legal means, struggle, and field work," adding that "discussions within the current parliament have become useless."

In a session devoted to discussing the government's general policy statement in the presence of the Prime Minister, Abeed strongly criticized the performance of the current government, and said that corruption is "rampant, and yet there is not a single person in prison accused of corruption."

Abeid was elected for the first time as a member of Parliament in 2018 while he was in prison, and was re-elected in May 2023 as part of an opposition coalition.

Abeid leads the Abolitionist Emancipation Initiative (IRA), which denounces the persistence of slavery and related practices in Mauritania.

The Mauritanian state, which has issued legislation prohibiting all forms of slavery, denies the continued existence of this phenomenon, and confirms that what remains of it is limited to its effects.

Slavery is deeply rooted in Mauritania, the last country in the world to abolish the practice in 1981.

Mauritania has a population of 5.5 million people belonging to several ethnic groups.

In 2012, the Global Slavery Index estimated the proportion of people living in slavery in Mauritania at between 10 and 20 percent, or up to 680,000 people.

© 2026 AFP

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