Morocco
Claims
Mauritania
Broke
Agreement, But
It Has Waited
Longer
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 20 --
The contest
between
Morocco and
Mauritania got
ugly, the
night before
they face off
in the General
Assembly for a
Security
Council seat.
At
Mauritania's
election eve
reception,
complete with
barbequed
meats and rice
but no liquor,
a Moroccan
diplomat told
Inner City
Press that
"Mauritania
broke a
gentleman's
agreement."
The
claim, denied
to Inner City
Press by
Mauritania's
Permanent
Representative
Abderrahim
Ould Hadrami,
is that went
Mauritania
switched from
the
West Africa to
the North
Africa group
in 2005, it
made an
agreement
not to run for
the North
Africa seat on
the Security
Council until
all other
members had
run. Now, the
Moroccan
claimed,
Mauritania
broke the
agreement.
"They'll
lose,"
the Moroccan
said. "And
they won't get
it next year,
when it's
Egypt, or the
next when it's
Tunisia, or
the next when
it's
Algeria."
This
brass knuckles
approach was
different than
the other
races.
Pakistan's
Permanent
Representative
Haroun told
Inner City
Press, of
Kyrgyzstan,
that it
is a
"brotherly
Muslim nation"
which was free
to compete.
Even on the
eve of the
vote, a
Pakistan
representative
would only
tell Inner
City Press his
country is
"cautiously
optimistic,"
a formulation
which an
existing
Council mocked
to Inner City
Press
when told.
After
being
pitched by
another
attendee that
Mauritania
should win not
only due
to its African
Union
endorsement
but because it
hasn't been on
the
Counil since
the 70s, while
Morocco was on
"in the
Nineties,"
Inner City
Press
point-blank
asked
Mauritania's
Permanent
Representative
Abderrahim
Ould Hadrami
about the
Moroccan
allegation.
"That is
false," he
said. "There's
no gentleman's
agreement."
He
joked to
guests
that if they
wanted
dessert, they
should go to
the receptions
thrown
by Slovenia,
opposed by
Hungary and
Azerbaijan, or
Guatemala
which is
running
unopposed but
still threw a
reception.
From
within the Latin
American and
Caribbean
Group there
was dark talk
of gentlemen's
agreements of
who would run
when which
would soon be
broken.
Abderrahim
Ould Hadrami
makes pitch in
half light Oct
20, (c) MRLee
Already
campaigning
has started
for the vote a
year from now,
when for
example
Finland will
face off
against
Australia and
Luxembourg.
Finland
planned to
play the
"small
country" card
like
Portugal did
last year, a
strategist
told Inner
City Press,
except
Luxembourg is
smaller -- but
also "too
French."
Finland
stresses
preventive
diplomacy, and
has already
distributed
free
umbrellas.
Game on.
, 
