Abdelaziz seen as Mauritania front-runner

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania, July 18 (UPI) -- Mauritanian military coup leader Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz is the front runner in Saturday's elections to determine the country's next president, observers say.

He is opposed by veteran politician Ahmed Ould Daddah, political analysts told the BBC, which quoted a local journalist saying the race is hotly contested.

But the run-up to the election has been marked by violence. Shooting between police and armed men has been heard in West African nation's capital of Nouakchott, with a man reportedly threatening to detonate an explosives belt. The BBC said the man had been surrounded while another man fled the scene.

Since its independence in 1960, the desert nation of Mauritania has had a democratically elected president for only one year -- 2007, when President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was elected and promptly toppled by the military, the British broadcaster said.