MORONI, Comoros
Comoros' President Azali Assoumani won a fourth five-year term after being declared by the country's electoral body on Tuesday following Sunday's election in which he contested against five opponents.
Assoumani has been ruling the
Indian Ocean archipelago nation since 1999 when he first came to power through
a coup.
Since then, he has won three
elections. Critics accuse his government of cracking down on dissent, which it
denies.
Results published by the
national electoral commission late Tuesday showed Assoumani garnered 62.97% of
the vote.
The country of about 800,000
people has experienced around 20 coups or attempted coups since winning
independence from France in 1975 and is a major source of irregular migration
to the nearby French island of Mayotte.
"We cannot talk about
results because there was no election," Mouigni Baraka Said Soilihi, one
of Assoumani's opponents, said after the results were published, adding the
election had been tainted by irregularities including closing polls before the
legally prescribed time.
On Sunday, other opposition
leaders said there were instances of ballot stuffing. They had called for a
boycott of the poll, accusing the election commission of favouring the ruling
party. The commission denies the charges.
Houmed Msaidie, Assoumani's
campaign director, also denied the allegations and asked the accusers to
provide evidence.
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