The campaign for Mauritania's elections began on yesterday in a carnival atmosphere despite a boycott by a large part of the opposition which has dismissed the process as a sham.The election commission said 1,096 candidates had registered to vie for the leadership of 218 local councils across the west African nation while just 438 people were contesting 147 seats in parliament.Activists set off fireworks in the capital Nouakchott at the midnight (0000 GMT) launch of the two-week campaign period while the noise of honking horns and loud music filled the streets.The ruling Union for the Republic staged an all-night party featuring dance troupes and poetry readings while its leader Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamed Lemine led a rallying cry for supporters to deliver a comfortable majority "for the good of all".Mauritania, a mainly-Muslim republic and a former French colony, is seen by Western leaders as strategically important in the fight against Al-Qaeda-linked groups within its own borders, in neighbouring Mali and across Africa's Sahel region. Around a third of its 3.4 million people are eligible to vote in the first parliamentary and local polls since 2006, five years after the coup of junta chief Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who was eventually elected in widely-contested polls.But 10 parties in the 11-member Coordination of Democratic Opposition (COD) are boycotting what they call an "electoral masquerade" after talks on how the vote should be run broke down last month.Thousands of the coalition's activists marched through Nouakchott on Wednesday to protest against the staging of the polls. Ould Mohamed Lemine said the boycott was "not justified in view of the political and electoral reforms accomplished" and called the COD to drop its threat to "derail by all legal means" the elections.The Islamist Tewassoul party is the only COD member contesting the polls, describing its participation as a form of struggle against the "dictatorship" of Abdel Aziz. Its leader Jemil Ould Mansour called for a huge turnout among its supporters, "because we face the state and its excesses in this election".The election commission urged the 64 parties represented in the campaign to show "responsible civic behaviour" over the coming fortnight and asked for tolerance and respect.