Azali Assoumani: Comoros President Wins Fourth Term In Disputed Poll

Comoros President Azali Assoumani has won a fourth term with 62.7% of votes despite opposition marking his re-election as fraudulent.

After attempting a coup d’etat in 1999, Assoumani was President of Comoros in 2002, 2016, and 2019 and is currently the African Union chairperson.

President William Ruto of Kenya withdrew Kenya from the position of AU chair, which allowed for Comoros’s Assoumani’s appointment as AU chairperson.

Assoumani said in a speech during the official opening of the Thirty-Sixth (36th) Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the Union, “My Dear Brother, President William Ruto, who had the elegance to withdraw the candidacy of his beautiful country, Kenya, for this position, which today allows the historic accession of the Union of Comoros to this noble function. By allowing the Union of the Comoros to lead the African continent, our Organization has just proved its conviction that all countries have the same rights and enjoy the same freedoms”.

In 2018, he notably proposed a constitutional referendum that included ending the system that had rotated the single-term federal presidency among the leaders of the three islands and allowing a president to serve up to two terms, which worked in his favour.

Elections won by Azali Assoumani have been marred by allegations of fraud and irregularities from the opposition, including during the most recent elections on January 14th.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excluding Assoumani, five candidates ran in the 2024 election, namely: Aboudou Soefou, Mohamed Daoudou,
Mouigni Baraka,Salim Issa Abdillah and Bourhane Hamidou.

Accusations included the stuffing of ballots and general fraudulent behaviour from Assoumani, like in past years. Just 16% of registered voters, 55,259, voted out of 330,000.

 

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