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Voters in the Comoros Islands began voting – today, Sunday – to choose a president to succeed Gazali Othmani, who is running for a third term in the face of a divided opposition, part of which called for a boycott of the vote.
The President’s campaign team raised the slogan “Knockout”, calling on voters to choose Othmani in the first round. He hopes to repeat what happened in 2019, when he won 60% of the votes in the first round.
In the capital, Moroni, where rain falls non-stop, a number of polling stations are waiting for their employees and were continuing to suspend electoral lists after seven (4:00 GMT), the scheduled start of the elections. Gendarmerie and police forces were deployed awaiting the registration of early voters.
The director of the city center office told Agence France-Presse, “Voting has not started because we are waiting for the equipment needed to set up the voting booth,” while other centers slowly began receiving the first voters to cast their votes.
On billboards, pictures of the president were placed with the words “Ghazali, the engineer of tomorrow’s Comoros” in this small country with a population of 870,000 people, and voters are also supposed to choose the governors of Grande Comoros, Anjouan and Moheli, which make up the archipelago.
Polling stations are supposed to remain open until 18:00 (15:00 GMT), when about 340,000 voters must choose a president from among 6 candidates.
The opposition says it fears “hijacking the elections” and this week condemned the failure to publish electoral lists so far. She says many voters do not know where to vote.
Mohamed Daoudou, the candidate and former Minister of the Interior under Othmani, said that the five opposition candidates “are working together to thwart the ruling party’s electoral fraud in collusion with the head of the Electoral Commission.”
For his part, Latoof Abdo (from the Goa Party) said that they object to “the irregular appointment of polling station members, who are all in power and most of whom are not at the required level.”
The army has been placed on alert to intervene in the event of unrest, but protests are rare in this Muslim country, where 45% of its population lives below the poverty line, according to World Bank estimates.
Antovia Ali (mother of 3 children) told Agence France-Presse, “We are having difficulty getting food. With 10 euros, we cannot shop every day.” She added, “I receive 130 euros a month and I cannot manage my affairs. I hope that the prices of food products will decrease.”
A number of civil society organizations confirmed that they are present at the polling stations to “protect” citizens’ votes.
The Election Observatory, a local organization that has monitored all voting operations for about 20 years, expressed its regret that it “did not obtain the necessary accreditations” to be able to do so during these elections.
In a statement, the organization expressed regret at the “deterioration of electoral governance in the country.”
The Independent Electoral Commission said the provisional results should be announced between January 15 and 19. If a second session is needed, it will be organized on February 25.
