Comoros constitutional referendum, July 30, 2018

[Sir John Johns]

My overly long write-up about what is a joke referendum in a very obscure country. Hope people could read it in its entirety and would find it interesting.

A referendum will be held in the Comoros on July 30, 2018 to approve or reject a text amending the 2001 constitution. Regardless of the outcome of the referendum, a presidential election is widely expected to be held in early 2019 as the incumbent president has announced he would resign in case the text is rejected and as it has been strongly suggested that, if the text pass, he would call an early presidential election in order to consolidate his power.

Background



An archipelago nation located in the Indian Ocean between Mozambique and Madagascar, the Union of Comoros is a country of about 800,000 inhabitants living in three of the four main islands of the Comoros archipelago: Ngazidja/Grande Comore (410,000 inhabitants), Nzwani/Anjouan (341,500 inhabitants, the most densely populated island) and Mwali/Mohéli (53,000 inhabitants). The fourth island of the archipelago, Maore/Mayotte, (256,000 inhabitants), has remained under French control when the rest of the archipelago had became independent from France in 1975; since 2014, it’s a French département. A major bone of contention between Paris and Moroni, the island is still claimed by the Comorian state and considered by it as an integral part of its national territory.  International condemnation of the continuation of French rule over Mayotte has been, at least until the 1990s, one of the key orientations of the Comorian foreign policy.

The Comoros are one of the poorest countries in the world with 44.8% of the total population living under the poverty line in 2004 and with a Human Development Index ranking 160 out of 188 countries. The economy of the three islands remains largely dominated by subsistence agriculture and fishing but the country has ceased since the mid-20th century of being self-sufficient in food. With an absence of major natural resources, the main exports of the Comoros are perfume plants (especially ylang-ylang), vanilla and cloves but the prices of these products are too much volatile to provide the Comorian state a stable source of revenues. The promising tourism potential remains largely untapped, a consequence of political instability, insecurity and decaying infrastructure.

Comoros' exports

Due to a rapid demographic growth (53% of the Comorian population is under 20), the country is experiencing overpopulation and land shortages. This has led to an important emigration toward Mayotte and metropolitan France (notably Marseille) and the population of the Comorian diaspora in France is estimated to be about 300,000. Remittances account for 21% of the GDP in 2017. Unfortunately most of the money from abroad is spent by wealthiest Comorians on the expensive traditional grand mariage (great marriage) ceremony – associated with a high social rank – and not invested into the economy. The demographic boom has also provoked significant environmental degradations: important deforestation, overfishing and destruction of coral reefs.

As a consequence of the weak economy but also of widespread corruption, the successive governments since independence have struggled to finance themselves: civil servants are generally unpaid for months while the most basic investments (electrification, road maintenance, development of the water network, creation of a national university) have been made with much delays it not at all. The Comoros rely heavily on foreign aid, which accounted for 10% of the GDP and 39% of the state budget in 2013, coming mainly from France, China and Gulf states. This hadn’t been without consequence over the country’s diplomacy: in recent years, Moroni has broke its diplomatic relations with Iran and Qatar to please its Saudi funders. Also, at the end of the 2000s, the Comorian government set up a quite bizarre scheme (‘economic citizenship’) consisting in giving the Comorian citizenship to stateless populations of Kuwait and the UAE in exchange of the promise of investments from these Gulf monarchies.

Economic and financial difficulties, corruption, lack of vision of the successive presidents and foreign interference (notably by European mercenaries in the 1980s and 1990s) have all contributed in the failure of the Comoros in state building. National identity is weak (as illustrated by the numerous changes of national flags) with the three islands clashing one against another in the distribution of the meager state funding and in the delimitation of the powers between the central state and the island local governments.

After a critical period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, during which Anjouan made secession from the country, a new system was introduced by the 2001 constitution, establishing the Union of Comoros, a federation of three islands each with its own elected head and its parliament. Said constitution had been amended in 2009 moving the federal system (that never functioned properly) in a strong centralist direction. If passed, the revised constitution will accelerate the centralization of the government and increase the powers of the already powerful president of the Union.

History

The precolonial era

Early history remains largely unknown and the dating of pre-colonial events are uncertain. The archipelago was first settled around the 6th century by Bantu population coming from the mainland Africa who spoke a language closely related to Swahili. Arab and Persian merchants came to the archipelago from around the 12th century, introducing Islam (that would remain the religion of the sole elite until the 19th century) and turning the Comoros into a hub for Indian Ocean commerce, notably slave trade. Starting from the 16th century, Sakalava warriors coming from Madagascar periodically raided the archipelago and settled in the four islands but more especially on Mayotte. Divided between a dozen of bellicose rival sultanates which were unable to unify the whole archipelago, the Comoros remained largely neglected by Europeans until the middle of the 19th century.

The colonial era

Playing one ‘fighting sultan’ against another, France gradually established its authority over the Comoros, starting with the annexation of Mayotte in 1843. By 1886, the rest of the archipelago had became a French protectorate but it wasn’t until 1912 that the three islands of Ngazidja, Nzwani and Mwali were also annexed to France. Slavery was abolished but replaced by indentured servitude; small groups of Chinese and Muslim Indians came then to the archipelago as indentured workers. Worth mentioning here that there is a strong antagonism remaining between the Arabicized urban populations and the rural peasant masses made up mostly of descendants of Bantu slaves; the latter constitutes a significant part of the armed forces.

Subordinated to Madagascar until 1946, the Comoros were almost totally neglected by French colonial authorities; tellingly, there were only ten elementary schools in the whole archipelago in 1939. Most of the power was actually held by French private plantation companies, notably the Société Comores Bambao, which appropriated much of the arable lands and reduced the local peasantry to indentured servitude. The archipelago experienced two important uprisings in the early 20th century: the first one in 1915 on Grande Comore against the payment of head tax, the second one in 1940 on Anjouan against forcible requisition of labor force.

In 1946, the Comoros were detached from Madagascar and organized into an overseas territory (TOM), which gained limited autonomy in 1956. The political life was then largely controlled by traditional elites and dominated by two non-ideological parties: the ‘Green Party’, mostly supported by civil servants and led by Saïd Mohamed Cheikh (deputy from Comoros to Paris, 1945-1962), a charismatic physician from Grande Comore who advocated and obtained a limited agrarian reform; and the ‘White Party’ which represented the interests of local businessmen and was led by Saïd Ibrahim (deputy to Paris, 1959-1970) a member of the princely family of Grande Comore.

In 1962, Cheikh became the first Comorian to hold the position of president of the government council of the Comoros, which had received extended power the previous year. Under his authoritarian administration, the already existing cleavage between Mayotte and the three other islands deepened, especially because Cheikh had played a major role in the controversial decision to move the seat of the archipelago from Dzaoudzi (Mayotte) to Moroni (Grande Comore). Facing a strong opposition from Mayotte inhabitants (he was welcomed there by stone-throwing demonstrators during his visit to the island in 1965), Cheikh retaliated by cutting drastically credits to Mayotte.

The road to independence

Flag of the Comoros, 1963-1975

After high school students protests in 1968, the control of the traditional elite over the political power was more and more criticized while the independence of the archipelago emerged as the most important issue. The cleavage between ‘Green Party’ and ‘White Party’ was replaced by a cleavage between partisans of immediate independence and advocates of a slow and gradual process towards the independence. A member of the later group, Saïd Ibrahim became president of the government council in 1970, after the death of Cheikh, his old rival. Ibrahim’s White Party lost the 1972 cantonal elections to a coalition led by Ahmed Abdallah, a partisan of immediate independence and a shady businessman who had built an important clientele network thanks to his control over vanilla production and sales and rice importation and distribution. In Mayotte, the election was won by the Mahorais Popular Movement (MPM), which was totally opposed to independence and supported the complete integration of Mayotte into France as a département. The MPM clearly benefited from the fear of numerous Mayotte inhabitants that the independence would led to increase political and economic influence of the (widely despised on Mayotte) aristocratic families of Grande Comore and Anjouan over the island.

Having become the new president of the government council, Abdallah negotiated with the French government the 1973 agreements that prepared the ground for a rapid independence of the Comoros. A referendum on independence was held in December 1974: the ‘yes’ triumphed in the whole archipelago with 94.6% of the vote, receiving near-unanimous support in every island but Mayotte where the ‘no’ received 63.2% of the vote. After some hesitation, the French government, pressed by the French navy (which wanted to keep a foothold in a strategic area, especially after the new socialist regime in Madagascar had forced the French military out Diego-Suarez) and by the Gaullist UDR party, decided that each individual island should be free to choose its own future according to the principle of self-determination. In that sense, the French parliament passed a law on July 3, 1975 stipulating that independence would be given only after each island had individually approved by referendum a new constitution. This was unacceptable for Abdallah, a strong proponent of a centralized state, as it was pretty obvious that Mayotte would only approved a constitution establishing a federation of the four islands.

On July 6, Abdallah unilaterally proclaimed the independence of the Comoros. The new state was supposed to comprise the four islands but the French authorities, which received the support of the local protestors, decided to stay in Mayotte while leaving from the three other islands; despite several attempts made at the United Nations to get the Comorian sovereignty over Mayotte recognized, the island would remained a French territory, rejecting in February 1976 through referendum with 99.4% of the vote a proposal to remain part of the Comoros.

The socialist experiment

Flag of the Comoros 1975-1978

Less than a month after the proclamation of independence, on August 3, while President Abdallah was on a trip on his native Anjouan, a group of left-wing military and armed civilians took control of Grande Comore. The coup is said to have been tacitly supported by France. In any case, it would be the first of a long series of coups and attempted coups that would regularly occurred during independent Comoros’ short history. Saïd Mohamed Jaffar, an aristocrat and former French senator, was installed as the new president but he would remained a figurehead, the real power being exercised by Ali Soilih, a prominent leftist opponent to Abdallah. In order to crush the rebellion of Anjouan, stayed loyal to Abdallah, Soilih hired a group of western mercenaries whose most famous member was Bob Denard, who would became a key actor in Comorian politics until the mid-1990s.

Ali Soilih

In January 1976, Soilih got rid of Jaffar and replaced him as president of the Comoros; backed by high school students militias, he brutally repressed opposition, instituted a dictatorial regime and proclaimed himself Mongozi (guide). The new head of state launched an ambitious Maoist-inspired revolutionary program that included nationalizations, administrative decentralization, measures to eliminate the traditional feudal social hierarchy and the power of Islamic clergy and sorcerers (notably by the institution of a spending cap on funerals and marriages), a Comorian-language literacy program, a campaign to promote gender equality and ban the wearing of Muslim veil, and the lowering of voting age to 14. In April 1977, a basic law was passed, defining the Comoros as a ‘social, secular and democratic Republic’ based on ‘popular power’. That same month, Soilih proclaimed the abolition of administration (replaced by revolutionary committees controlled by high school students), dismissed almost all civil servants and ordered the burning of the national archives. Plans were also made to start a wide-scale land reform that would have included nationalization of all lands.

In the international area, the Soilih regime tried, without much success, to obtain a financial aid (made indispensable by the end of French financing) from Libya, North Korea and China. The feud with France over Mayotte escalated after the failure in November 1975 of a peaceful ‘Pink March’ and Soilih threatened a military intervention to retake control of the island. Relations with the socialist regime in Madagascar also worsened after the December 1976 Majunga massacre during which over one thousand of Comorian expatriates were murdered by mobs: the Comorian government had, in the following months, to deal with the return to the archipelago of some 18,000 Comorian migrants to Madagascar.

Facing economic suffocation, food shortages, international isolation, social discontent and political unrest (Mohéli revolted against the central State between October and December 1977), the Soilih regime was finally overthrown on May 13, 1978 by a group of mercenaries led by Bob Denard, acting on behalf of former president Abdallah and with the probable support of the French government; Denard faced little if no opposition from the Comorian army during the coup. Soilih was imprisoned and shot and killed shortly thereafter, officially after an attempt to escape.

[Sir John Johns]

The mercenary rule

Flag of the Comoros 1978-1992

A directorate was instituted on May 23, co-chaired by Ahmed Abdallah and Ahmed Mohamed, a veteran politician and former deputy to Paris who was, like Abdallah, an important rice importer. The 1977 basic law was repealed, freedom of opinion and religion restored and policies of the Soilih administration almost entirely reversed. A new constitution was approved by referendum on October 1, 1978 and on October 23, Abdallah was elected president of the new Federal Islamic Republic of Comoros unopposed. The new constitution provided an executive power shared between a president and a prime minister, restored Islam as state religion, made French and Arab the official language (at the expense of Comorian language) and conceded a large degree of autonomy for each island which were granted a directly elected governor and legislature. This latter provision was included in order to favor a potential (but more and more unlikely) integration of Mayotte into the Comorian state. The 1978 Constitution is widely seen as the best constitution in Comoros’ history; however, its implementation would proved difficult and the passage of successive amendments would completely distorted it.

President Ahmed Abdallah

The first priority of Abdallah was to break out the diplomatic isolation of the country – provoked not only by Soilih’s foreign policy but also by the intervention of European mercenaries that had led to Comoros’ suspension from the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in July 1978 – and to find new sources of funding. After the Comorian government had agreed to the (provisional) departure of the toxic Denard, cooperation and military agreements with France were signed in November 1978: French military were charged of organizing and training Comorian army and gendarmerie while development aid from Paris provided fresh money for the ailing Comorian economy. In February 1979, the Comoros were readmitted to the OAU. Abdallah also developed the economic and diplomatic ties between the archipelago and the Gulf monarchies, especially Kuwait, which funded several infrastructure projects. More importantly, Abdallah found a new ally and generous funder: South Africa. As early as 1979, a secret South African listening post was set up on Grande Comore to monitor shipping movements in the Mozambique Channel; the Comoros quickly became a transit base for South Africa for circumventing the international embargo against this country and for providing weapons to the Mozambican RENAMO guerrilla.

Abdallah quickly reconstituted his business empire (which flourished while the rest of the economy was languishing) and consolidated his political power with the support of the European mercenaries who had never left the archipelago. Supervised by about 40 Europeans, a 500-man praetorian guard constituted of Comorian paramilitary, the Presidential Guard (GP), was set up to maintain public order, thwart coup attempts and supplement the inefficient Comorian army, whose loyalty was questionable. Initially funded by Morocco and Gabon, the GP was later entirely sustained by South African government and private companies (notably the Sun International resort hotel chain) and benefited, of the tolerance if not the discrete support (notably under Chirac second premiership, between 1986 and 1988) of the French government. Like President Abdallah, the European mercenaries engaged also into lucrative economic activities; for example, Bob Denard built a fortune thanks to his monopoly on meat imports. Converted to Islam as Saïd Mustafa Mhadjoub, the ‘white sultan’, who officially only hold the post of ‘roving ambassador’, had became the most powerful man in the Comoros.

Bob Denard and the GP

Through numerous constitutional changes, manipulated elections and abrupt demotions of potential political rivals, Abdallah consolidated his rule over the Comoros and set up an autocratic regime. As early as January 1979, a law was passed by the National Assembly dissolving every single political party for a twelve-year period. That same year, a purge was conducted among elements allegedly supportive of the Soilih regime leading to the arrest and the disappearance of several opponents. In February 1982, Abdallah launched the Comorian Union Party (‘Blue Party’) as the sole legal party. The following November, a constitutional amendment was approved making the previously elected island governors simple presidential appointees. The change was justified by the claim (far from being totally untrue) that the regional governments had proved unable to raise revenues to fund themselves while multiplying the extravagant and frivolous spending. The true reason seems that Abdallah wanted to prevent the emergence of political challengers who could have built their own clientele network with the money of the island governments. In September 1984, Abdallah was reelected president unopposed with 99.4% of the vote. In January 1985, the post of prime minister was abolished. Finally, in November 1989, a constitutional change was approved by referendum with 92.5% of the vote enabling Abdallah to run for a third consecutive presidential term.

However, the regime of Abdallah had became more and more unpopular as the economy had failed to improve and as the president had grown more and more authoritarian. A first coup attempt staged by nostalgic supporters of the Soilih government was thwarted in February 1981. More serious was a mutiny of several Comorian members of the GP against their European senior officers that took place in March 1985. The attempted coup was blamed on ‘communists’ and on Comorian exiled opponents; it led to a wave of repression against the opposition. A similar attempted coup, in November 1987, was used as an excuse to arrest and torture to death several opposition members. On November 26, 1989, President Abdallah died under unclear circumstances, killed by a burst of machine-gun fire. Initially claimed to be ‘an accident’ by Denard, the death of Abdallah was later attributed to a former Comorian army commander Abdallah had dismissed shortly before but many believed Denard was behind the murder if not its perpetrator. Indeed, by that time, Abdallah would have seriously considered expelling Denard and his mercenaries.

As stipulated in the Constitution, the presidency was assumed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Haribon Chebani, who however lasted only few hours at the head of the Comoros as Denard and his men staged a coup that led to the death of twenty seven and subsequently installed Saïd Mohamed Djohar, the ephemeral successor of Chebani at the post of chief justice, as the new president of the Comoros. A veteran politician already active during the colonial era, Djohar happened to be also the half-brother of former president Ali Soilih. Abdallah’s probable murder and the subsequent coup provoked an international uproar and a wave of brutally repressed demonstrations and strikes in the Comoros. France (where the socialist Rocard had succeeded Chirac as prime minister in 1988) and South Africa (by now led by De Klerk whose main priority was to end the diplomatic isolation of his country) negotiated with Denard and his mercenaries their surrender and their departure from the Comoros: on December 15, 1989, Denard flew to South Africa where he was immediately arrested. Nevertheless, Djohar remained in office as acting president while France send a military contingent to restore public order.

The Djohar presidency or the failed democratic transition

Flag of the Comoros 1992-1996

A national unity government including prominent opponents was constituted by Djohar in order to prepare the organization of a presidential election, initially scheduled for January 1990. The ban on opposition parties and the restrictions on the freedom of the press were lifted. After a first postponement, the first round of the presidential election was held on February 18, 1990 with eight candidates running, including Djohar. There was however so much fraud that the voting process was halted and a new election was held on March 4. As no candidate managed to won an absolute majority a runoff was held on March 11 between Djohar and Mohamed Taki, a former president of the National Assembly under Abdallah who later became an opponent to the latter’s regime. Djohar officially won with 55% of the vote but Taki claimed fraud.

A weak president who struggled to keep together his frail ruling coalition and had to constantly reshuffle his government (there would be no less than eighteen governments under his presidency), Djohar saw his popularity rapidly collapsing as he proved unable to relaunch the economy, badly hurt by the collapse of world ylang-ylang prices. Under the pressure of the IMF and the World Bank, he had to implement an adjustment plan to address the problem of the unsustainable debt, leading to a sharp decrease in the number of public servants. In the meantime, the president’s ministers and his own family found themselves regularly involved in corruption scandals, thus increasing social discontent.

To resume control over the situation, Djohar appointed his rival Taki as ‘coordinator’ of the government and convened a constitutional convention. The new constitution, approved by referendum in June 1992, reinstated the post of prime minister, restored the direct election of island governors, gave a large autonomy to the islands and created a Senate. However, the first multiparty legislative elections, which were held in November 1992, were marked by violence and resulted in a totally unworkable parliament: the largest party (Djohar’s one) got only 7 seats out of 42 and fourteen parties (plus several independents) were represented in parliament. This was revealing of the degree of fragmentation of the Comorian political scene, divided between about twenty parties of which none of them had a clear ideology. After the Federal Assembly had voted out of office two successive prime ministers in less than six months, Djohar called fresh legislative elections in December 1993. The poll resulted in the large victory of the ruling party, which won an absolute majority of the seats, thanks to the boycott of the runoff by the opposition.

Still, government instability continued to prevailed (with three successive prime ministers being appointed in two years) while the country was dangerously heading for chaos. The ailing economy was further weakened by a series of strikes and the public services were crumbling due to the lack of funding. In 1992, an important social uprising broke out in Mohéli with the protesters basically taking control of the island for several weeks.

A series of coup attempts further destabilized the country. As early as August 1990, European mercenaries led by a buddy of Denard tried unsuccessfully to return in the archipelago. In August 1991, the Supreme Court of the Comoros made an attempt to impeach Djohar; this led to the arrest of the chief justice. In September 1992, acting on behalf of two sons of late president Abdallah, a group of military took temporarily control of Moroni while Djohar was on a trip to France; this latter took pretext of the failed coup to crack down on opposition: several coup leaders were sentenced to death (sentence commuted to life in prison at the request of France). In March 1994, an apparent attempt to assassinate Djohar was thwarted.

Finally, on September 28, 1995, Bob Denard came back to the Comoros at the head of thirty mercenaries and overthrow and arrested Djohar; meanwhile, the two imprisoned sons of Abdallah were released. While the coup was officially condemned by France, it seems probable that Denard had received some support from the French intelligence services. In any case, on October 4, a French military contingent landed in the archipelago and, two days later, obtained the surrender of Denard and his mercenaries. However, the constitutional order wasn’t immediately restored as Djohar had been sent to Réunion by French military and would only be permitted to return to Moroni in January 1996, once he had renounced to run for president in the next presidential election, scheduled for the following March.

The political disintegration

Flag of the Comoros, 1996-2001

On March 25, 1996, during the first peaceful power transfer in Comoros’ history, Djohar was succeeded by his old rival, Taki, who had won the presidential runoff several days before with 64.3% of the vote. The new president quickly moved to consolidate his power: a new constitution was approved by referendum in October 1996 providing notably the abolition of the Senate, the removal of presidential term limits, the appointment of island governors by the president and the reduction of the powers of the island legislatures. The president’s party won the subsequent legislative elections, hold in December 1996, which were however boycotted by the majority of opposition parties.

A deeply religious man, Taki advocated a strict application of the sharia, launched a moralizing campaign to limit sale of alcohol and ban miniskirts and changed the national flag to add the words ‘Allah’ and ‘Muhammad’ on it. Like his predecessors, Taki proved unable to revive the stagnant economy, to end the recurring food shortages, to prevent strikes of public servants over arrears nor to effectively fight the widespread corruption and nepotism. Actually, he heavily favored Grande Comore, especially his native region of Hamahamet, over the rest of the archipelago in the distribution of the foreign aid. This attitude would strongly encourage the development of separatism.

In early 1997, the island of Anjouan, hit hard by unemployment (90% of the population) and affected by overpopulation and extreme poverty, was shaken by a series of demonstrations which quickly degenerated into bloody riots. The harsh repression of the central government only aggravated tensions with Anjouan protesters beginning to call for the independence of the island or its re-attachment to France. After a huge demonstration on July 14, during which French flags were raised on mosques, the separatists took control of the island and proclaimed its independence on August 3; the self-proclaimed Anjouan government led by Abdallah Ibrahim, a rich and old businessman, called for the re-attachment of the island to France, a demand immediately rejected by the French government. On August 11, Mohéli in turn proclaimed in turn its independence and a separatist government was set up in the island.

President Taki, whose authority had began to be challenged on Grande Comore itself, assumed full powers and initially choose the heavy-handed approach to solve the separatist issue. After an attempt to militarily retake Anjouan failed badly in September, the Comorian president, under pressure of the OAU, accepted the opening of negotiations in December which quickly stalled as both Anjouan and Mohéli self-proclaimed governments demanded the resignation of Taki. In the meantime, the population of Anjouan had approved in October 1997 through a referendum the independence of the island with 99% of the votes in favor; a subsequent referendum on a separatist constitution later passed by similar hardly credible margins in a referendum held in February 1998.

President Taki unexpectedly died on November 6, 1998 (officially of a heart attack, actually possibly poisoned) and was succeeded on an interim basis by the Anjouan-born president of the High Constitutional Court, Tadjidine Ben Saïd Massounde, until the holding of a presidential election, theoretically scheduled for February 1999 but indefinitely postponed. In an effort to constitute a government of national union, Massounde appointed the leader of the opposition as prime minister but this move was strongly rejected by the party of Taki, provoking an unwelcome political crisis. Meanwhile, on Anjouan, where the economy was in shambles and where the population faced many shortages and deprivations, the political situation worsened as divisions began to appear among separatists: self-proclaimed president Ibrahim escaped a murder attempt in November 1998 and, the following month, a mini-civil war broke out between moderate (not opposed to dialogue with Moroni) and hardliner separatists.

In April 1999, a new round of negotiations opened in Antananarivo, Madagascar, under the auspices of the OAU between representatives of the three islands. An agreement was reached between Grande Comore and Mohéli, providing the establishment of a federalized state allowing a large degree of autonomy for each island. However, representatives of Anjouan refused to sign the agreement, arguing it must previously been approved by Anjouan voters. The subsequent collapse of the negotiations provoked riots on Grande Comore during which Anjouan migrants were attacked by mobs. This gave a pretext for the army to intervene: on 30 April, interim president Massounde was overthrown and replaced by Col. Azali Assoumani who abrogated the constitution and announced he would govern by decree.

The OAU refused to recognize the new government in Grande Comore and called for the restoration of constitutional order while also urging Anjouan government to sign the Antananarivo agreement. Despite the pressure of the international community, the separatist government in Anjouan, now led by Saïd Abeid, a former French army officer involved in lucrative criminal activities, held in January 2000 a referendum on the Antananarivo agreement, aggressively campaigning for a rejection of said agreement. Amid allegations of fraud and voter intimidation, the Anjouan voters refused the Antananarivo agreement, once again by unbelievable margins. In response, the OAU imposed an economic blockade on the separatist island, starting from March 2000.

Facing the threat of an OAU-sponsored military intervention, the Anjouan separatist government reluctantly restarted the negotiations with Moroni. In August 2000, following a meeting between Assoumani and Abeid in Fomboni (Mohéli), an agreement (Fomboni Declaration) was reached, providing for the turning of the Comoros into a federation of three (theoretically four with Mayotte) islands, each of them enjoying a large degree of autonomy. After difficult negotiations, a framework agreement on reconciliation (Fomboni agreement) was signed in February 2001 between the Comorian government, the Anjouan separatists and the main opponents to Assoumani providing the drafting of a new constitution to be submitted to a referendum. As a consequence of the agreement, the OAU lifted its blockade on Anjouan.

Initially planned to be held in June 2001, the referendum had to be postponed several times due to financial difficulties, disagreements over the content of the new constitution and a series of political developments. In August 2001, Saïd Abeid was overthrown and replaced by the head of the gendarmerie Mohamed Bacar as the self-proclaimed leader of Anjouan. The following month, a coup against Bacar was thwarted while, in November 2001, an attempt of Abeid to retake control of Anjouan was repelled. On December 19, only few days before the referendum, a group of thirteen European mercenaries made a very amateurish attempt to overthrow the regime of Assoumani: landing on Mohéli as they had not enough fuel to reach Grande Comore, they presented themselves as US soldiers coming in the archipelago to arrest Assoumani because of his alleged links with Osama Bin Laden. Having failed to convince the gendarmerie to support their coup attempt, they were attacked by the Comorian army: four mercenaries were shot dead by the Comorian military and two additional ones were lynched by a mob.

Nevertheless, the new constitution, currently still in force, was approved by 77.0% of Comorian voters on December 23, 2001. It provided the creation of the Union of Comoros, a federation of three self-governed islands, each with its own constitution, its own directly elected president, and its own directly elected assembly. On the national level, the executive power is held by a directly elected president (assisted by two elected vice presidents coming from islands different of the president’s one) with the presidency rotating every four years among the three islands, starting with Grande Comore. The national legislative branch consists of a 33-member National Assembly of which 18 of them were directly elected and 15 appointed by the island assemblies.

[Sir John Johns]

The difficult federalization process

Flag of the Comoros since 2001

The entry into force of the new constitution marked the end of the ill-fate Federal Islamic Republic of Comoros and the birth of the Union of Comoros. However, the poorly written Basic Law of the new federal state remained very vague over the demarcation of responsibilities and the allocation of public resources between the federal government and the island governments. This would led to a permanent power struggle between the federal president and the island presidents, especially the president of Grande Comore.

As provided by the framework agreement on reconciliation, the election of the new federal president was held in March 2002 concomitantly with referendums on each islands over the new local constitutions. Assoumani, who had previously resigned from the office of president in order to run in the election, placed first in the presidential primary hold on the sole Grande Comore island with 39.8% of the vote. The poll was marked by violence and the main opponents to Assoumani, claiming fraud, decided to boycott the runoff scheduled for the following month. In the same time, while Anjouan and Mohéli approved their new constitutions by large margins, Grande Comore rejected the proposed text.

In April, Grande Comore voters finally approved an amended draft constitution while Assoumani won the presidential runoff uncontested but there were less voters than in the primary which was, as previously mentioned, only held on Grande Comore. The National Electoral Commission annulled the vote, arguing it was neither free nor fair and plagued by violence but said commission was promptly disbanded and replaced by a rubber-stamp ‘Validation Commission’, which certified the election of Assoumani. Election of island presidents took place at the same time: in Anjouan, former separatist leader Mohamed Bacar was confirmed at the head of the island in a poll plagued by widespread fraud while, in Grande Comore and Mohéli, the election was won by opponents to Assoumani, respectively Abdou Soulé Elbak and Mohamed Saïd Fazul.

New federal government and island governments were formed in June 2002 but power struggle immediately broke out between Assoumani and Elbak over their respective fields of competence, leading to occupation of federal buildings (supposed to be shared between the federal government and Grand Comore government) by the military. Confrontation escalated between Assoumani and Elbak with the latter claiming the former was plotting to murder him. In August 2002, the federal army fired on a protest organized by supporters of Elbak. In February 2003, two ministers of the Grande Comore were arrested and charged of having planned a coup against Assoumani; they were later released because of lack of evidence.

In August 2003, under the auspices of the African Union, an agreement was reached between the federal government and the island governments providing for the devolution of police powers to the island government. However, tensions persisted in Grande Comore where the army fired on a peaceful protest led by Elbak in November 2003. In the meantime, Mohamed Bacar had became de facto independent from Moroni, ordering notably once to remove the flag of the Comoros from Anjouan from official buildings. In December 2003, an agreement was signed on Moroni, settling most of the disputes between federal and island governments, notably the share of the customs revenues between the federal government and each islands.

The Moroni agreement opened the way for the long-delayed legislative elections to designate the members of the National Assembly and of the three island assemblies. The election, which took place in March 2004, saw the overwhelming victory of the anti- Assoumani coalition, the Camp of the Autonomous Islands (CdIA), supported by the three island presidents in both national and local assemblies, over the ruling Convention for the Renewal of the Comoros (CRC): the CdIA won a majority of the directly-elected seats in Anjouan and Mohéli and the totality of the indirectly-seats while the CRC won a majority of the directly-elected seats in Grande Comore.

The years 2004-2005 saw social unrest and an intensification of strikes – regularly organized by civil servants (whose salaries were often unpaid or in arrears) and by taxi drivers (who protested against the poor state of the roads) as the economic situation failed to significantly improved: the economy only grew on average 3% per year while the public debt continued to increase as the creation of the three island governments had led to a significant growth in the number of civil servants.

After of a campaign of his supporters to enable him to run for reelection failed, Assoumani reluctantly agreed to left power at the expiring date of his presidential term. It was then the turn of an Anjouan resident to hold the federal presidency: the presidential election held in April and May 2006 saw the clear victory of the populist Islamist Ahmed Abdallah Sambi over the candidate supported by Assoumani. Unlike the 2002 presidential election, the 2006 poll was widely seen as free and fair.

The Sambi presidency

A Saudi Arabia- and Iran-educated preacher and also a successful businessman, Sambi presented himself as a ‘moderate Islamist’ who considered that the Comoros weren’t yet ready to become an Islamist country. His ties with Iran earned him the nickname of ‘the Ayatollah’ even if he professed a Sunni Islam. In any case, he was elected not only because of his religious networks but also thanks to his demagogic platform, promising to build hundreds of housing, to create jobs, to fight corruption and to lower prices of staple products. Of course, none of this would materialize under the presidency of Sambi.

President Sambi

One of the main priorities of the new president was to improve the diplomatic relations between the Comoros and the other Muslim states for both ideological and financial reasons. In December 2008, Sambi enacted, despite the opposition of the parliament, the so-called ‘economic citizenship’ law granting Comorian citizenship to stateless Kuwait and UAE residents in exchange of private investments that largely failed to materialize. Conversely, Sambi managed to negotiate in March 2010 with Qatar an important financial aid that permitted the payment to Comorian civil servants of seven months of wage arrears. More controversial was the rapprochement with Iran and Libya: in February 2009, President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a state visit in the Comoros; Iranian nationals were recruited among the presidential guard while Libyan military instructors were sent to the Comoros to reorganize the army. In March 2009, Sambi sparked a controversy by suggesting that the Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded to President of Sudan Omar al-Bashir.

Sambi’s active diplomacy enabled him to receive international support to resolve the 2007-2008 Anjouan crisis and durably consolidated the federal power over the rebellious island. Tensions between the union presidency and the Anjouan government, which was virtually independent from Moroni, had already escalated after declarations of President Sambi over the excessive cost for the Comoros of having four presidents, four parliaments and four armies. In April 2007, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the presidency of Anjouan vacant as Bacar’s term had expired; consequently, Sambi appointed an interim president, a decision rejected by Bacar. Incidentally, terms of presidents of Grande Comore and Mohéli had also expired but the union government didn’t intervene to remove them from office. The following month, Bacar’s armed forces attacked federal buildings in Anjouan with heavy weapons and expelled the union military from the island. A presidential election, unrecognized by Moroni and the African Union, was held in June 2007, resulting in the landslide reelection of Bacar; as usually, the election was marred by widespread fraud and violence.

In response, the African Union imposed a maritime blockade on Anjouan the following October. In March 2008, an African Union-sponsored expeditionary force (mostly constituted by Sudanese and Tanzanian soldiers) and the Comorian army landed on Anjouan and rapidly took control of the island, whose inhabitants welcomed the military intervention after years of corrupt and authoritarian rule. Bacar had fled to Mayotte where French authorities arrested him; they refused however to extradite him to the Comoros, provoking tensions between Paris and Moroni. New presidential elections were held on Anjouan in June 2008 and were won by the candidate endorsed by President Sambi.

With the previous victory of Sambi-backed candidates in the June 2007 presidential elections in Grande Comore and Mohéli, the president had then enough political clout to deeply amended the text of the 2001 Constitution. In May 2009, Comorian voters approved in a referendum a series of constitutional changes that included: the considerable reduction in the powers of the island presidents (symbolically renamed governors) and island assemblies (renamed island councils) to the benefit of the central government; the increase of the powers in the president of the Union who acquired the right to dissolve the National Assembly; the increase in number of vice presidents from two to three (one for each island) who additionally received more or less the task of supervising the island governors; the lengthening of the presidential term from four to five years; finally Islam was made the official religion. As a consequence, the country moved from federalism back to de facto centralism while the presidentialist nature of the regime was reinforced.

In December 2009, the legislative elections saw the victory of the Baobab movement, the coalition supporting President Sambi. The new parliament approved in March 2010 the postponement of the presidential election from May 2010 to November 2011. The move, seen as an attempt of Sambi to stay in power after the expiration of his presidential term, led to international uproar and provoked a series of riots in Mohéli, the island from where the next president should have come from. However, in May, the Constitutional Court stroke down Sambi’s term extension and ruled that the outgoing president would remain at the head of the state until new presidential elections were hold but on an interim basis and with reduced powers.

At that time, the rule of Sambi appeared to have been weakened by a conflict between the president and the Comorian military, unhappy with the growing influence of Libya in the Comoros. Shortly before the ruling of the Constitutional Court, the Comorian army chief of staff, Salimou Amiri, claimed in the medias that the president’s chief of military cabinet was plotting to murder him. In June 2010, a high-ranking military and close ally of President Sambi, Combo Ayouba (who had played a prominent role in the 1995 coup), was gunned down by unknown killed in Moroni. Amiri was suspected of having ordered the killing and was dismissed in September; however, he would later be released because of lack of evidence.

It was the turn of a Mohéli resident to hold the presidency of the Comoros for the 2011-2016 period. The presidential election held on November and December 2010 saw the victory of Ikililou Dhoinine, the candidate endorsed by Sambi, over former president of Mohéli Mohamed Saïd Fazul. The opposition claimed massive fraud on Anjouan but the international observers called the election transparent despite minor irregularities. The elections of island governors were won by members of the Baobab movement in Anjouan and Grande Comore and by an opponent to Sambi in Mohéli.

The Dhoinine presidency

In May 2011, Dhoinine became the first Comorian head of state hailing from Mohéli, the least populated island of the country. A low profile pharmacist with few political experience, the uncharismatic Dhoinine was largely seen as the puppet of Sambi and was expected to pursue the policies of his predecessor. However, already by October 2012, the relations between the two men had strained as Dhoinine dismissed his presidential chief of staff, a close associate of Sambi, and replaced him with a strong opponent to the former president. The rupture between the two men became obvious in October 2013 when Sambi launched a new party, the Juwa Party, and announced his candidacy to the 2016 presidential election, ignoring the fact he was constitutionally ineligible to the post because he wasn’t a resident of Grande Comore, the island from which the next president should come from.

On the domestic side, the presidency of Dhoinine was marked by the establishment in September 2011 of the Supreme Court (ten years after the entry into force of the constitution) and by a coup attempt in May 2013 by Congolese mercenaries acting on behalf of a son of former president Ahmed Abdallah. The recovery of the economy was hurt by a long series of protests and strikes provoked by delays in paying salaries to civil servants and the decay of the education and health systems and by recurring water and power cuts. Despite all these problems, Dhoinine’s new party managed to (barely) win the January 2015 legislative election, placing first, slightly above Sambi’s Juwa Party.

Unlike his predecessor, Dhoinine wasn’t very active on the diplomatic level and made few visits abroad. In January 2017, breaking with the foreign policy of his predecessor, Dhoinine decided to suspend diplomatic relations with Iran, accusing this country to interfere in the domestic affairs of the Comoros. The break with Tehran happened during a rift between Iran and Saudi Arabia but was also motivated by the (real but probably exaggerated) growing popularity of Shia Islam in the archipelago.

The presidential primary took place on Grande Comore in February 2016. Mohamed Ali Soilihi, the candidate of the ruling Union for the Development of the Comoros, finished ahead with 17.6% of the vote against 15.1% for Governor of Grande Comore Mouigni Baraka, 15.0% for former head of state Azali Assoumani and 14.4% for Fahmi Saïd Ibrahim, who had been endorsed by Sambi as the presidential candidacy of this latter had been predictably rejected. A second round was held in the three islands in April 2016 between the three top candidates in the Grande Comore presidential primary: Assoumani, who had received the endorsement of Sambi, declared himself the winner having received 41.0% of the vote against 39.9% for Soilihi. However, arguing of irregularities, the Constitutional Court of the Comoros ordered a rerun of the second round in several voting stations on Anjouan. Assoumani was finally elected in May 2016, having received 41.4% of the vote against 39.6% for Soilihi.

The return to power of Assoumani

Sworn in May 2016, Assoumani unveiled the following month his government in which the Juwa Party held the portfolios of foreign affairs and justice. However, the alliance between Assoumani and Sambi would proved short-lived due to strong disagreement over religious and foreign policy.

President Assoumani

The religious policy of the new government was indeed marked by growing intolerance to followers of non-Shafi’i Sunni Islam. In October 2016, a note of the Interior Ministry indicating that public and private places should be forbidden to non-Sunni Muslims was made public. One year later, in September 2017, several (Sunni) Muslim adherents were sentenced to jail for undermining the religious unity as they had celebrated Eid al-Adha on a different day than that fixed by the Grand Mufti of the Comoros. Meanwhile, the Juwa Party ministers had left the government in July 2017 to protest against the decision of Assoumani, taken the previous month, of breaking diplomatic relations with Qatar in support of Saudi Arabia.

Political system and proposed changes

The Union of Comoros is, theoretically, a federal state made of three (theoretically four including Mayotte) autonomous islands, each led by a directly elected governor (until 2009 president). Since the 2001 constitution, each island also had a unicameral local parliament, the island council (until 2009 island assemblies), also directly elected by the island population and made up of 25 members in Anjouan, 20 members in Grande Comore and 10 members in Mohéli. Island governors and councils are elected for a five year period.

The head of state of the Comoros is the president of the Union who is elected for a five-year (until 2009, four-year) non-immediately renewable term. According to the 2001 constitution, the presidency of the country must rotated each five years between the three islands in the following order: Grande Comore > Anjouan > Mohéli. The president is elected through a complex and quite unique electoral system. A presidential primary is firstly held on the island from which the next president should come from. A second round is thereafter held in the three islands between the three top candidates of the presidential primary. The top candidate of the second round is elected president. The president is assisted by three vice presidents (one for each islands), whose role has been increased by the 2009 amended constitution and who more or less act as representatives of the central government on the islands.

The national legislature is the 33-member National Assembly with 18 deputies being elected by two-round FPTP in single-member constituencies and 15 appointed by the island councils. Deputies are elected for a 5-year term but the president of the Union can, since 2009, dissolve the parliament and called fresh legislative elections.

The judiciary is constituted by the Supreme Court (only operational since 2011), the highest court of the country, whose members are appointed by the president of the Union and the Constitutional Court in charge of judging the constitutionality of the laws passed by the national and island legislatures, monitoring the electoral operations and ruling on electoral disputes, guaranteeing the distribution of powers between the Union and the islands and ruling on the conflicts of jurisdiction between the Union and the islands and, finally, guaranteeing the fundamental rights of the individual and public liberties. The president of the Union, the vice presidents of the Union, the president of the National Assembly and the island governors each appoint one member to the Constitutional Court.

The text put to vote would, if passed, made the following changes:
- the same island would be able to hold the presidency for two consecutive terms
- the president of the Union would be elected to a five-year renewable once term
- the three posts of vice presidents of the Union would be abolished
- the president of the Union would be able to conclude and ratify international treaties without the assent of the parliament
- the Constitutional Court would be abolished and its duties transferred to the president-appointed Supreme Court.
- Sunni Islam would became the official religion; the 2009 constitutional text only mentions Islam as the official religion.

So, if passed, the amended constitution would enable incumbent president Azali Assoumani (in office since 2016) to run for reelection for two additional presidential terms. It would also reinforce the powers of the president and would provide a legal basis for the persecution of the Shia minority (more or less assumed by the Comorian government to be Iranian agents).

The campaign

The revised constitution text has been drafted following the recommendations of a National Conference, summoned in last February and boycotted by the main opposition parties. The proposal has been widely denounced by the opposition including former president Ahmed Abdallah Sambi (who ironically was behind the 2009 revised constitution that reinforces the powers of the president of the Union and reduces those of the island governments) and the governors of Anjouan and Grande Comore. Also opposed to the change is the current vice president from Grande Comore, theoretically a member of the ruling coalition. The opposition remains however divided about whether voting ‘no’ in the referendum or boycotting the poll.

Political tensions have mounted in the recent weeks as former president Sambi has been under house arrest in May (officially for corruption in the sale of passports under the economic citizenship program) and the secretary general of the Juwa Party (Sambi’s party) has been arrested following a series of demonstrations. Few days ago, the vice president from Anjouan, who supports the constitutional change, escaped an assassination attempt in his native island.

[parochial boy]

Awesome stuff as usual. One thing I've got to ask though, what is the current attitude in Comoros towards the kwassa-kwassa and the illegal immigration to Mayotte? Given the scale, it must have a pretty major impact locally, especially on any lingering irredentist sentiment?

[Sir John Johns]

Awesome stuff as usual. One thing I've got to ask though, what is the current attitude in Comoros towards the kwassa-kwassa and the illegal immigration to Mayotte? Given the scale, it must have a pretty major impact locally, especially on any lingering irredentist sentiment?

Can’t really provide a comprehensive and well-structured answer as I’m far from being a specialist and there seems to be no good studies on the question while the general quality of the Comorian news websites is pretty bad. I can only provide some tidbits, hoping it would help to understand a little the situation.

The official position of the Comorian government, which is seemingly supported by the vast majority of the Comorian population, is that any Comorian resident should be free to move to Mayotte as it’s (theoretically) an integral part of the national territory. This is why Moroni strongly opposed the introduction in 1995 of the Balladur visas (mandatory for any Comorian citizen wishing to travel to Mayotte) and makes few if not zero efforts to oppose the departure of kwassa-kwassa from Anjouan to Mayotte. Additionally, the Comorian government has some interests in enabling emigration to Mayotte as it provides the country some badly needed money and it contributes to defuse the explosive social crisis in Anjouan.

Indeed, the poorest (and probably also the most overpopulated) island of the archipelago, Anjouan is not only the hub from migrants transiting from Mohéli and Grande Comore to Mayotte but also the island of origin of the majority of immigrants to Mayotte. Historically, there are strong cultural relations and kinship ties between Anjouan and Mayotte islanders with many Anjouan inhabitants having a relative living on Mayotte. So the introduction of the Balladur visas was seen as a disaster and surely contributed to some degree to the secession of the island in the end of the 1990s.

Anjouan society is characterized by a strong and rigid divide between the arabicized urban inhabitants of the major cities (makabaila) – who had almost always hold political and economic power in the island – and the countryside inhabitants of Bantu extraction (wamatsaha). In Grande Comore, upward social mobility is made possible by the grand mariage celebration, which required a lot of money but can still be paid by remittances from emigrants to France. Conversely, on Anjouan, the grand mariage is reserved to the makabaila so the wamatsaha have no choice but emigration (either to Mohéli and Grande Comore – where they face discrimination – either to Mayotte) to escape their condition.

The wamatsaha played an important role in the secessionist movement, being those who feel the most rejected by Moroni and being those who could have benefited the most from a potential reunification with France, and they were favored by the regime of Mohamed Bacar. When the later was removed from office by a foreign-supported invasion, he fled to Mayotte and France refused to extradite him to the Comoros (he was later expelled to Benin) arguing of possible political persecution. This led to protests on Grande Comore and Mohéli with Comorians accusing France to secretly support the Anjouan secessionist movement, an accusation which doesn’t seem totally untrue. After the recent assassination attempt against the vice president from Anjouan, the Comorian government claimed that ‘the weapons came from Mayotte’, which shows that it still accuses France to meddle in Comorian affairs and to support Anjouan separatists.

[Sir John Johns]

Provisional results:
Yes 92.7%
No 7.3%

Assoumani made truly no efforts to make the referendum appears at least a minimum credible.

Turnout was officially 63.9%, which totally contradicts reports by the Eastern Africa Standby Force (EASF) members and the AFP about a very low turnout. The opposition is claiming fraud and has denounced numerous irregularities in the voting.

[DavidB.]

Amazing write-up - this was a great read!

[Sir John Johns]

After having nullified 11,757 out of 188,750 votes, the Supreme Court has proclaimed the definitive results of the referendum:

Yes: 92.3%
No: 7.7%

Turnout: 62.7%

Consequently, the new constitution has immediately entered into force with the posts of vice presidents being abolished. An early presidential election is expected to be held the next year. I will probably use the same thread to cover it.