Malouma, officially Malouma Meidah, first became politically active as a member of the opposition party in 1992, speaking out against dictatorships and in favor of democratization. In 2007, in what was widely considered the first freely held and fair election in the country, she was elected to the Senate of Mauritania, as one of the six women senators in a legislature of 56 members. She was the first person from the musician iggawen caste to serve in politics. Shortly after she was elected, a coup d'état took place in Mauritania in 2008 and deposed the first democratically elected head of state, Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. Because she had written songs criticizing the coup, Malouma was arrested and over a thousand cassettes and CDs of her recordings were seized. After the coup, the leader, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, allowed elections to proceed with only minor delays. He was elected president in July 2009 and the Senate elections in which one-third of the members faced re-election also were held. The parliamentary opposition group, called "Ech-Choura", of which Malouma was a member and served as the First Secretary, constituted 12 members of the 56-member Senate after the 2009 election. She also served on the Parliamentary Group for the Environment and as 2nd Secretary of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Armed Forces.