“Difficult to mobilize”: the Comoros opposition’s call to demonstrate on Friday against the disputed re-election of President Azali Assoumani remained a dead letter, after the violence that resulted in the death of one person in recent days.
On a diplomatic level, the United States has asked the Indian Ocean archipelago to “clarify” the results of the presidential elections, the announcement of which on Tuesday sparked two days of clashes between gangs of youths and police, looting and fires.
Azali Assoumani was re-elected in the first round with 62.97% of the votes but only 16.30% of participation, according to official data announced Tuesday evening by the Electoral Commission (Céni). This victory should allow him to return for a third consecutive term and remain in power until 2029.
The opposition, which is calling for the elections to be annulled, has denounced “serious fraud” and “ballot box stuffing”.
In Moroni, the men left the capital’s largest mosque alone on Friday before returning home, usually for a family meal.
The day before, the five opposition presidential candidates had however invited “all the people of our cities and villages” to demonstrate after the prayer.
Some men exchange their opinions under a meaner tree: “the government prevents all communication and with the Internet interrupted it is difficult to mobilize,” says Bilali Soidiki, wearing a turban and vest over his boubou. Internet connections have been largely down since Wednesday.
Most companies brought down the curtain on Friday. And the police were deployed in large numbers.
On Wednesday and Thursday in Moroni there were clashes between gangs of young people and the police, the former throwing stones at the latter who responded with tear gas. Buildings were vandalized and burned, a rice warehouse looted and roads blocked by piles of stones and pieces of wood.
One person was killed and six others injured, according to the head of the Moroni hospital emergency room.
From Wednesday the night curfew will be in force until further notice. Several arrests took place but no figures were released.
“I got a tear gas grenade,” Kassim Omar Abdou, 20, told AFP. “I demonstrated because Azali has been holding us hostage for several years.”
“total transparency”
The United States on Friday called on CENI and the Comoros authorities “to ensure full transparency and clarify the announced results.”
Noting “some recorded irregularities,” the U.S. Embassy in Comoros stressed in a statement that the findings “raised serious concerns that must be addressed to maintain the peace and well-being of the nation.”
One of the critical points is the unexpected difference in the participation data in the two simultaneous elections: according to the official count, 189,497 Comorians voted for the election of governors, but only 55,258 voted to choose their president.
“A disparity that was not evident to national and international observers,” underlines the American embassy.
The UN and EU call for “calm” and to “continue the process in a peaceful manner”.
France, for its part, expressed its “concern about the tensions and violence of recent days” on Friday and called on “all actors in the Comoros for moderation and dialogue”, in a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The results of the vote will have to be validated in the next few days by the Supreme Court, the highest court of the archipelago of 870 thousand inhabitants, 45% of whom live below the poverty line.
Having come to the helm of the country in 1999 with a coup d’état, Colonel Azali returned to power in 2016. He is the current president of the African Union, until the next summit of the pan-African organization scheduled for mid-February.
2024-01-19 18:32:32
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