Biram Dah Abeid, a human rights activist and opposition candidate in Mauritania's presidential election, denounces the CENI (the Independent National Electoral Commission), calling it a “travesty” and “totally subservient to those in power and to the most rotten wings of that power", before the press in Nouakchott, the capital. Meanwhile Mauritanians vote today to choose between change or continuity embodied by the outgoing president Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani. Opposing him are six candidates, including Biram Dah Abeid, who are promising the first real democratic changeover. Biram Dah Abeid says: "No other way of forcing the issue outside the ballot box will be accepted". IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES