Comoros opposition candidate Daoudou Abdallah seeks annulment of vote

Moroni, Comoros

An opposition candidate in the Comoros on Saturday filed a suit seeking the annulment of the Indian Ocean nation's recent vote in which the president was controversially re-elected, sparking deadly protests.  

The opposition had urged people across the island chain to block roads after Friday prayers to denounce President Azali Assoumani's "electoral masquerade", but the protest call went unheeded.

Assoumani's victory is expected to be confirmed by the Supreme Court at the weekend after the electoral commission declared he had won more than 60 percent of the ballots in Sunday's first-round vote.

Speaking outside the Supreme Court Daoudou Abdallah Mohamed, a former interior minister and a candidate from the Orange opposition party, said the election commission had "published fabricated results".

"I have proof of ballot box stuffing," he said. "My plea is for the results to be annulled and for new elections to be held."

The Comoros capital Moroni had been paralysed by two days of running street-battles between stone-throwing youths and armed soldiers after the vote.

The government spokesman, contacted by AFP, welcomed the move.

"One cannot transform the street into a court," spokesman Houmed Msaidie said. "If the court says we haven't won, then we haven't."

At least one person was fatally wounded, according to medics.

According to the official tally, 189,497 Comorans voted for governors on each of the archipelago's three islands, but only 55,258 cast a vote for president.

Assoumani is a 65-year-old former military ruler turned civilian president, who critics accuse of jailing opponents to extend his grip on power.

Some 45 percent of the Comoros' population of 870,000 lives below the poverty line.