Even by mind-boggling African election standards, last Friday’s polling in Mauritania would challenge any satirist’s imagination.
Centre stage is a leader who is opposed, among others, by a man he deposed in a coup 19 years ago.
President Maaouiya Ould Taya was himself a strongman until the army tried to depose him in June this year, bringing mayhem to the streets of the capital, Nouakchott, for two days.
The election in the vast desert country on the north-western bulge of Africa is more about personalities and ethnic allegiances than issues.
Taya and most of his major rivals are all members of the fair-skinned Moors, known as Bidans, who have comprised the ruling elite since Mauritania got independence from France in 1960.
Only one of the five other presidential candidates, Messaoud Ould Boulkeir, is from the dark Moors, known as Harratin.
Boulkeir campaigns in local dialects rather than the Arabic of his rivals. His ethnic group traditionally served the Bidan in a system of slavery that was abandoned only in 1980.
There is no candidate for the Negro Mauritanians who comprise a third of the population.
The first woman presidential candidate is Aisha Mint Jeddane who has been campaigning against forced marriages and female circumcision.
Ahmed Ould Daddah, another candidate, is the brother of a former president — deposed in 1978 — who died earlier this year.
Daddah, a former World Bank economist, is considered the most able runner and he drew a third of the vote in 1992.
However, Taya’s major rival is Mohamed Khanna Ould Haidallah, whom he booted out of office in a 1984 coup.
Haidallah has run a slow and poorly organised campaign although he does seem to have attracted several former Taya loyalists.
Taya paid Haidallah the compliment of raiding his home earlier this week and searching it fruitlessly for seven hours.
Government authorities insist, however, that assault rifles were in fact found in other homes linked to Haidallah.
Taya, who has done a remarkable volte face in switching support from Saddam Hussein to United States President George W Bush, maintains he is under threat from Muslim fundamentalists.
The fifth candidate is an engineer, Moulaye Ould Jiyad, who has extensive fishing interests.
Fishing and iron ore are the two major commodities earning revenue for this country that is suffering chronic food instability with 300 000 people on the brink of starvation.
Like all people in this region, Mauritanians, who earn an average of $1 677 a year, are hoping for an oil bonanza. Initial exploration results have been encouraging but no commercially viable reserves have yet been found.
Taya has been stacking the odds as heavily as he can in his favour. In the past week he has seized the entire run of four newspapers whose content displeased him.
He has prevented NGOs from forming bodies to monitor the polling. The door has also been closed on foreign observers. Each of the candidates was given 90 minutes of air time on radio and television and an election budget of $24 000. Taya has had unrestricted public face time before the electorate.
Nevertheless the exercise, involving 1,1-million registered voters going to 1 900 polling station, is likely to be fairer than the 2001 parliamentary and municipal elections.
The voters’ roll has been published on the Internet and voters have themselves been issued with special cards. The ballot boxes will be transparent. If a candidate does not emerge with more than 50% of the vote after Friday’s polling, the electorate will have to return in two weeks’ time.
For the second time this year, Taya is a nervous man.