Gunfire was heard near the main military base in the Comoros capital on Thursday, hours after opposition candidates announced plans to unseat the president whose re-election this week they reject as fraudulent.President Azali Assoumani was declared the winner in Sunday’s election with more than 60 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a second-round run-off. Observers from African monitoring missions have said the election lacked credibility.
The 12 opposition candidates said they had set up a body called the National Transition Council, chaired by one of them, Mohamed Soilihi, to remove Assoumani from office.
“The mission of the National Transitional Council is to resolve the post-election crisis, to ensure a peaceful transition, to preserve peace, stability and national cohesion in our country,” Soilihi said in a statement broadcast on private-owned radio stations and social media platforms.
Shooting
A diplomatic source said Soilihi was arrested after releasing the statement, and the military camp came under attack shortly afterwards. A Reuters journalist said shooting could be heard at the camp and stopped after about an hour.
In Soilihi’s statement, the opposition candidates set an April 3 deadline for the vote to be invalidated. Otherwise they called for civil disobedience and a general strike from April 4.
Observers from the African Union, the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa and the African Standby Forces of the East said the voting process was riddled with irregularities that led them to conclude it lacked credibility or transparency.
Assoumani said on Tuesday that anyone wishing to contest the results should do so via legal means.
“I hope that those that are contesting the results will follow the legal channels and wait for the final results to be announced by the Supreme Court,” he told Reuters.
Authorities shut down a local newspaper, La Gazette, for publishing a story about the proposed transition council.
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