Comoros in one-horse pole race
2002-03-10 09:00
Moroni - Comoros' largest island votes in presidential primaries on
Sunday, with military chief Colonel Azali Assoumani in a one-horse
race after the pull-out of his eight challengers.
The rival candidates cited electoral fraud, including the
printing of duplicate voters' cards and the enrolment of a large
number of "phantom voters", for their decision announced just one
day before polling.
They also called on voters to boycott the poll.
Their withdrawal leaves Colonel Assoumani Mani, who seized power in
the Indian Ocean islands in 1999 but who stepped down in January to
take part in the presidential poll, as the sole remaining candidate
in Sunday's primaries.
The eight candidates met on Saturday afternoon with members of the electoral commission as well as the international community to ask
for a postponement of a series of elections, due to culminate
mid-April with the presidential poll.
Designed to end secessionist crisis
The elections are designed to put an end to a four-year
secessionist crisis in the tiny island state.
The candidates were turned away from Radio Comoros, where they had hoped to make a broadcast to the population, and then made a
tour of the island to spread their message.
Questioned late on Saturday, an electoral commission
official said "no decision has been taken up until now" to postpone
the polls.
The eight candidates are former prime minister Abbas Djoussouf,
Mahamoud Mradabi, Prince Said Ali Kemal, Ali Mroudjae, Abdallah
Halifa, Mtara Maecha, Mustufa Said Cheikh and Yussuf Said Soilih.
In an earlier letter to the electoral commission, they slammed what they said was a "formidable machine which has been put in place with the intention
of staging an electoral hold-up".
The electoral system, they said, was designed to ensure a
victory by Assoumani.
The candidates said the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) had highlighted "a number of irregularities" in the voters'
cards.
The letter cites cases of regular voters whose names have been
erased from the voters' list, and the inclusion of names of people
who have been dead for more than 10 years.
Errors
They list 6 000 errors, 2 000 cases of deliberate fraud, and
claim 10 000 voters' cards have been duplicated.
Simultaneously with the presidential primary, a referendum was
due to be held across the Comoros on Sunday in which voters are to be asked to give their backing to the new constitutions drawn up for
each of the three islands.
Voters are due to return to polling stations on March 31 and
April 7 to choose "presidents" for each of the three
territories.
The Comoros, lying off the southeast coast of Africa, has been
plagued by chronic instability and repeated coups since three of
the four islands - Grande Comore, Anjouan and Moheli - voted for
independence from France in 1975 and formed an Islamic republic.
Mayotte, the fourth island, opted to stay under French rule.
The instability worsened in 1997 when Anjouan and Moheli
unilaterally declared independence from the Comoros central
government in the capital Moroni, on Grande Comore.
The latest elections follow a reconciliation agreement last year
that led to the adoption of a new constitution giving the three
islands greater autonomy and replacing the Federal Islamic Republic
of the Comoros (RFIC) with a new Comoros Union.
The latest string of crises began in 1999 when Assoumani seized
power from the interim government that had taken over a year
earlier after the death of President Mohamed Taki Abdulkarim.
Azali survived a coup attempt in March 2000 and another in
December 2001.
He stood down in January to take part in the presidential
elections, just as the new unity government that emerged from the
national reconciliation accord collapsed over opposition
grievances.
- Sapa-AFP
- SAPA