Comoros voters will choose a 33-seat parliament

A year after President Azali Assoumani was re-elected in a poll that the opposition claimed was tainted by several irregularities, Comoros voters were heading to the polls on Sunday to choose the 33-seat parliament for the Indian Ocean archipelago.

Those claims have been refuted by ruling party officials.

Voters, estimated by the polling body to be 338,000, began casting their ballots at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Sunday when polling booths opened early. The most recent parliamentary elections in Comoros were held in January 2020.

The nation’s Supreme Court chose about 100 candidates to run in the election.

When Assoumani’s term ends in 2029, his eldest son, Nour El-Fath, is expected to succeed him, and his opponents accuse him of dictatorial excesses. Since taking over in a coup in 1999, Assoumani has been in charge of Comoros. Since then, he has won three elections.

Assoumani gave his son broad new authority last year, allowing him to oversee all government operations.

While some opposition groups have rejected the call for a boycott of the elections, others, including Juwa, which is led by former President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, who was given a life sentence in 2022, have called for it.

“The Azali regime is weakened… by participating in these elections we are contributing to further exposing the flaws in its system and accelerating its inevitable fall,” Hamidou Karihila, who is running for the opposition Hope of the Comoros party, told Reuters.

Results are anticipated by January 17 and polls are scheduled to end at 4 p.m.