As the ruling coalition in Pakistan braced for impeachment of President Pervez Musharraf, ex-Chief of Army Staff who assumed power after toppling the elected government of the then Prime Minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif, way back in 1999, troops staged a coup in the West African Mauritania on Wednesday, arresting the president and prime minister and shutting down state radio and television.
According to initial reports, troops detained President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi and Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf, subsequent to naming of a new head of the army, chasing the present staff away from the state broadcaster and surrounding the presidency, no sign of fighting though.
From all indications, the action now taken in Mauritania bore enough similarity with the circumstances under which the then Chief of Army Staff General Pervez Musharraf (retired) had ousted the constitutionally elected Prime Minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif, the latter having named a new COAS to replace the former.
According to a decree read out on national radio earlier a new chief of the army and the presidential guard, were named to replace General Ould Cheikh Mohamed Ahmed and General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, two members of the transition council which ushered in the elections which Abdallahi won in 2007.
While the president's whereabouts were unknown, the prime minister had reportedly been taken to an army barracks near the presidency. The capital of the nation of 3.1 million people was reported to be calm, with little evidence of any turmoil, witnesses said, though troops had surrounded the presidency and the state broadcaster.
It will be recalled that Abdallahi became Mauritania's first democratically elected president last year after a period of transition supervised by a military council that deposed the previous president in a bloodless coup three years earlier. However, the coup is stated to have been caused by Abdallahi's move to replace the generals allegedly stirring up political trouble.
Observers in Nouakchott say the two generals were accused of being behind the mass walkout of the ruling party MPs, saying they would form a new party because they wanted a change of direction in the country, which imports more than 70 percent of its food and has been badly affected by the global food crisis.
The Mauritanian President is also reported have recently threatened to dissolve parliament after MPs filed a motion of no-confidence in his new government, which then resigned. Moreover, they are reported to have tried to call a special session of parliament to create a commission to investigate the country's response to the rising cost of living, and also the financing of a foundation run by the president's wife.
Be that sit may, not unlike Pakistan, Mauritania has a history of coups since its independence from France, way back in 1960. More to this, it was stated to have been shaken between December 2007 and February 2008 by three attacks from extremists linked to al Qaeda, which left seven people dead, including four French tourists.
Time has certainly come for the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) to give a serious thought to determination of why it has to be for its member nations largely to remain a victim to military intervention to deprive them of the lasting gains of a democratic political system.