UN compound attacked as election crisis deepens

Staff at the United Nations compound in the Comoros were on alert on Thursday, a day after arsonist attack. A generator was set alight and a building that the arsonists' believed housed the electoral commission was also torched. The fire came the same day that the campaign directors of the two opposition parties, which boycotted Sunday’s presidential poll, visited the compound to complain about a joint statement issued by four observer missions. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) representative Andre Carvalho told IRIN that the generator was set alight at about 19:00 on Wednesday. The arsonists then attempted to set fire to another building. The UNDP had been closely involved in technical aspects of the election. Most employees working at the compound had left for the day, but a few still remained and the blaze was quickly extinguished, Carvalho said. He said that on Wednesday morning the two campaign leaders arrived at his office saying they were not happy with a statement made by observers, including la Francophonie (an organisation of French speaking nations), the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the Arab League. The statement urged the reconciliation process to move forward and said the elections were carried out correctly, but stopped short of pronouncing them free and fair. The observers found that violence associated with the poll across the three islands was not connected to the candidates and that the vote was proper where it took place. Carvalho said: "The campaign directors came to see me and wanted to raise the issue of the communique. I had to explain that the international observers were not UN observers and that the UN had no bearing on the content of the communique and couldn’t interfere. I told them to discuss their concerns with the observers and they left." Earlier in the week a group of youths set fire to a car owned by the managing director of Radio Comoros, Fatma Mohamed, accusing her of supporting Colonel Azali Assoumani. Meanwhile, Comorians were still holding their breath on Thursday, waiting for the results of Sunday’s poll to be endorsed by their electoral commission. Assoumani, the only candidate for the rotating presidency of the three Indian Ocean islands won Sunday’s poll after the two other candidates, Mahamoud Mradadi and Said Ali Kemal, boycotted the vote. They alleged irregularities with the voters' roll. Assoumani, who came to power in a coup in 1999 and stepped down at the beginning of 2002 to stand as a presidential candidate, has already made a victory speech on state radio. "We were supposed to have had a decision, but I think the electoral commission is in retreat," Carvalho said. He said the the islands were in "totally unknown territory", with some parties calling for a rerun of the election. He said: "Some excuses are valid, some are not, but it is confusing a large part of the population. "There are no official results and the interim government is being weakened. Decisions have been taken, postponements are being made and there is no unity. We are not really served in terms of authority and direction. "There is no serious well-functioning instrument for the rule of law. The decision makers and politicians are interpreting the law in their own way." A resident told IRIN that Comorians were expecting Assoumani's inauguration. However, Carvalho said an inauguration could not be planned until the commission had pronounced on the results. Under the new constitution each island should have its own president and a federal president shall have overall authority. The islands of Anjouan and Moheli have already elected their presidents, but the Grande Comore election is still awaited. Turnout for Sunday’s election was low, with provisional numbers showing that 44.4 percent of registered voters went to the polls on Grande Comore. On Anjouan 33.4 percent of registered voters went to the polls and in Moheli 35 percent voted. Initial results gave Assoumani more than three quarters of the vote. The poll has so far been denounced as not free and fair by the Comoro national elections monitoring body because of incidents of violence and the small number of votes cast.