Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz
In August 2019, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani was sworn in as Mauritania’s tenth president since its independence from France in 1960. His predecessor Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz ran the African desert country for 10 years. The ruling party Union for the Republic (UPR) was founded by Aziz in 2009. Mohamed Ould Ghazouani's victory in the 2019 Mauritanian presidential election was presented as having been the country's first peaceful transition of power since independence.