OAU sends envoy after election commissions dissolved

The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) is to urgently send an envoy to the Comoros after the country's election commissions were dissolved for "incompetence and inability", a communique said on Wednesday. A committee set up to settle disputes in the constitutional reform process, dissolved the election and ratification commissions on Monday after they declared the 14 April election on the main island of Grande Camore invalid, news agency AFP reported. They had been petitioned to do so by opposition candidates Mahamoud Mradabi and Said Ali Kemal who boycotted the election at the last minute alleging irregularities. The only candidate Colonel Azali Assoumani, who came to power in a coup but stepped down in January to qualify for election, secured over 75 percent of the vote with a low poll. OAU chief Amara Essy appealed to all parties involved to find a solution to the dispute through dialogue and said he would send special envoy Francisco Madeira to the Indian Ocean archipelago urgently. The Comoros Union of Moheli, Anjouan and Grande Comore is currently being led by an interim government headed by Hamada Madi Borelo. The interim government's mandate ends when a new president is inaugurated. Under a new constitution, each island should have its own president and a federal president would have overall authority. The islands of Anjouan and Moheli have already elected their presidents. But Grande Comore, which will have the rotating presidency first, will have to wait for the dispute surrounding the 14 April election to be resolved before it chooses its own leader.