NO one should say boycotts never work. Mauritania, which has just held presidential elections, is proof they do. After last year’s coup in which the country’s first democratically elected president was overthrown, the international community responded with sanctions. Such was the crippling effect of the sanctions that the coup leaders were forced to negotiate with the opposition and an international contact group led by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade to find a way out. The compromise reached last month was the release of the imprisoned former prime minister, suspension of the ruling military council, its replacement by an interim government accepted by the military and opposition alike and Saturday’s fresh elections. As a result of that agreement, the African Union suspended its sanctions against Mauritania.

The victory of coup leader Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz in the elections is, however, unlikely to be the end of the story. The opposition has called the result “prefabricated” and demanded an inquiry. The outcome poses a practical quandary for the international community. Does it recognize the results, lift remaining sanctions and normalize relations with the country? Or does it continue to keep Mauritania at arm’s length?

There is a deeper philosophical quandary as well. What do you do when a legitimate government is overthrown and those who are responsible then call new elections and win them? Are the new election victors the legitimate authority — or are the old ones? There are no hard and fast rules. It comes down to political preferences by those doing the recognizing. This was certainly the case in instances of “people power”, such as in Czechoslovakia in 1989, Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2005. In all three, constitutional governments were overthrown by mass insurgency and the new order recognized by the rest of the world. In the cases of Czechoslovakia and Ukraine there were justifications. In the former, the communists had consistently rigged elections by refusing to allow anyone else to stand while in the latter the ousted government had also taken to electoral cheating.

The situation in Ukraine was not wholly unlike that in Honduras where the president was forcibly removed last month by troops following his attempt to violate the constitution and remain in power. In this case, however, the international community decided it was a coup, as in Mauritania and thus unacceptable; Manuel Zelaya may have been trying to cheat but he was the legitimate president. Even so, the response is different. Efforts to mediate a way out of the Honduran dilemma center on restoring him to power as head of a unity government; in Mauritania, it was the coup leader who was accepted by the mediators as head of a unity administration.

In the case of Honduras, negotiations have broken down. Sanctions may be the only way to resolve a situation, which, if left unchecked, could end up in civil war. As Mauritania shows, sanctions work.

In the latter’s case things ought to be easier. Last month’s agreement under which the ousted president resigned and fresh elections were called officially draws a line under the past.

But there, too, the threat of violence looms. The opposition has considerable support. The rest of world is going to have to wait and see before it decides to readmit Mauritania fully into the fold.

Letter from Europe

EXCERPTS from the editorial that appeared in The Washington Post on Sunday:

Twenty years have passed since the revolutions that restored freedom to what had been the captive nations of Central and Eastern Europe. That many Americans no longer give much thought to that part of the world testifies, in part, to the region’s success. The eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union helped bring security, stability and growing prosperity; more important, the countries themselves have nurtured democratic and free-market institutions that in 1989 would have seemed unreachable.

Yet an impressive collection of former presidents and ministers from the first two decades of post-communism warn, in a letter released last week, that long-lasting success should not be assumed. “All is not well either in our region or in the trans-Atlantic relationship,” they caution. Since the signatories are staunch allies of the United States and of democracy — ranging from Vaclav Havel and Alexandr Vondra of the Czech Republic to Lech Walesa and Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland to Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia and Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania — they merit a hearing.

The global recession has given room to “nationalism, extremism, populism, and anti-Semitism” in some of their countries, the former leaders acknowledge. At the same time, they say, “NATO today seems weaker than when we joined” while “Russia is back as a revisionist power pursuing a 19th-century agenda with 21st-century tactics and methods. ... The danger is that Russia’s creeping intimidation and influence-peddling in the region could over time lead to a de facto neutralization of the region.”

In response, they say, President Barack Obama administration should recommit to NATO as a defense alliance, not just an expeditionary force with duties in Afghanistan and beyond. It should support pipelines that will diminish the region’s dependence on Russian oil and gas. It should take care, as it evaluates planned missile-defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia opposes, to consult closely with the governments that have the most at stake.

None of this will come as news to Obama, who has made clear that the United States will not recognize a privileged Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union or Warsaw Pact. The administration nonetheless should take the letter to heart, not as a rebuke but as encouragement.