By RFIPosted on 03-24-2019 Modified on 24-03-2019 at 20:56

More than 300,000 voters from this archipelago of the Indian Ocean were called to the polls for an early presidential on which hovers suspicion of fraud. In Moroni, the opposition accused President Azali Assoumani's regime of electoral "coup" and in Anjouan the day was marked by incidents.

Interior Minister Mohamed Daoudou granted Sunday evening a press conference. He did not give figures, but indicated that the counting of votes was over on the islands of Anjouan and Moheli, it is underway in Grande Comore. The results are being centralized.

Democracy has triumphed, citizens have exercised their rights freely, said Mohamed Daoudou.

The opposite of what the opposition said earlier that the vote was tainted massive and organized fraud. The 12 opposition candidates called for the revolt, to physically prevent the return of the polls to the People's Palace in Moroni, where the results are centralized. The Interior Minister has denounced " a call to violence that will not go unpunished ".

As for the violence, in Anjouan this Sunday morning offices were ransacked, because voters had found that ballot boxes were coming full of newsletters, roads had been blocked, clashes had erupted. The journalists saw five people wounded, three of them shot. Asked about the excessive use of force, the Minister of the Interior still challenged these facts and spoke of two wounded, a policeman and an assessor who tried to intervene to avoid the rampage of his office. As for the bullet wounds seen by the reporters, the minister said none had been registered in the country's hospitals.

Chaotic voting day in Anjouan

Voting day was peppered with tension on the island of Anjouan. Several polling stations were ransacked by the population who suspected fraud and others were closed by police because of violence. The Cen has confirmed the destruction of ballot boxes of a dozen localities in a statement that ends with the arrangements made for the resumption of normal elections.

Dozens of polling stations sacked and roads barricaded, it is the report made in more than a dozen localities in Anjouan. " They wanted to cheat so the ballots were washed away, the ballot boxes were broken. The assessors who were there were cleared out. People got upset. They understood that there would be cheating then they destroyed the urns, "says a witness.

At times the angry crowd was dispersed by force and arms as in Pomoni, a city south-west of the island of Anjouan, where there were three wounded by bullets evacuated by motorized canoe to Mayotte. " There are three who are injured very dangerously. There is one who is injured in the spine and the others are wounded in the feet with bullets. The village population of Pomoni decides to evacuate to Mayotte in the immediate future, "said another witness.

" What happens to us is very hard: we shot our children, so we send them to Mayotte. We are small, the only thing we can do is protect our children, "says a woman.

The presidential movement rejects this version of events. Still, the votes have never resumed in most of the blocked offices. In Ouani, near the capital, the thirteen offices were closed with more than an hour in advance by the army equipped with tear gas to disperse the crowd, preventing the signing of the minutes as provided for in the electoral code.

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