2008 — Mauritania's 2008 Coup: The General Seizes Power

On August 6, 2008, Mauritania's presidential guard stormed the palace in Nouakchott and arrested President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the country's first freely elected leader. General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, the man Abdallahi had just tried to fire, seized power instead, ending the experiment before it could take root.

The coup crushed Mauritania's brief democratic opening and drew a suspension from the African Union. In a familiar strongman script, Aziz later won a 2009 election and ruled for a decade. The day remains a cautionary story: an elected president removed by his own guard, and a vote that followed the gun.