Mauritanian party slams government

The Mauritanian February 25 movement presented on Wednesday its opinion on  amendments to the Mauritanian constitution, which are scheduled to be announced this week. The movement issued a statement where they said that although the constitution was a "sacred legal threshold", it required amendments following changes that "every country undergoes." The statement went on to criticise what it referred to as the regime's violations of the constitution, and the attempt to amend it illegally, with the pretext of weak arguments resulting from the dialogue between regime loyalists and the opposition. According to February 25, the regime succeeded in diverting public opinion from the seriousness of the issue, which includes manipulating the constitution to serve the interests of those in power. Accordingly, the movement undertook the task to inform the public about the issue by refuting the political and legal arguments on which the regime had based its attempts to tamper with the constitution. The current Mauritanian constitution states that its amendments should be carried out in two ways: either by a popular referendum, as was the case in 2006, or by holding a conference with the two houses of parliament to settle on them. The regime resorted to the second option, which apparently ensures the implementation of the amendments more than a referendum would. However, approving a constitution by convening the parliament should not be applicable for several reasons, the main being that the National Assembly expired at the end of 2011.