elections

Tents at the carrefour Nouadhibou

After almost a year past since the “Coup d’Etat” the country prepares itself to voting on the 18th of July for their next President. The campaign started a few days ago and the 10 candidates have been dressing up tents all over town.

Music plays all day long and at about 11.30 pm just before I go to bed, the streets fill up with people and cars touring. They call it here “défilé” and that’s what they do. Its a real opportunity to walk around, enjoying the cooler temperature of night time and checking the views (young ladies on their best attires). Some tents will have live music with the singers praising their candidate. People also will come over pick up the microphone and say a poem about their candidate.

In the area I live, quite central, I just spotted the tents of four candidates, the more important or the ones that have a better budget for the campaign.

Tents in some streets being side by side, you can all imagine the noise as each candidate has their own musics.

In this country with a strong oral tradition music and poetry are used to pass on political messages.