2023 Nouakchott regional election

Regional elections were held on 13 May 2023 to elect the 37 members of the Regional Council of Nouakchott, as part of the 2023 Mauritanian regional elections.

Background
Regional councils were first elected in Mauritania in 2018 following a 2017 constitutional referendum that abolished the Senate, replacing it with regional councils in every wilaya and a single one for the city of Nouakchott.

Those first 2018 regional elections led to the ruling party Union for the Republic (which rebranded as El Insaf in July 2022) to barely take control of the Nouakchott's Regional Council. Ex-mayor of Tevragh-Zeina Fatimetou Mint Abdel Malick, running for the UPR, won a narrow majority on the second round against Mohamed Jamil Ould Mansour, the opposition-backed candidate and previous leader of the Islamist Tewassoul party.

On 26 September 2022 an agreement between the Ministry of the Interior and Decentralisation and all political parties registered in Mauritania was reached in order to renew the Independent National Electoral Commission and hold the elections in the first semester of 2023, with parties justifying it due to climatic and logistical conditions.

Mint Abdel Malick was presented as candidate for re-election by El Insaf on 20 March 2023 together with the rest of candidates to head the regional councils of the country.

Election system
On 26 September 2022 all Mauritanian political parties reached an agreement sponsored by the Ministry of Interior and Decentralisation to reform the election system ahead of the upcoming elections after weeks of meetings between all parties.

In this election, regional councils will be elected in a single round using proportional representation through the largest remainder method, with no threshold being applied. The head of the list that gets the most votes will automatically become president of the regional council.