The President of Comoros Azali Assoumani has been re-elected in a poll slammed by the opposition as unfair.

Despite a low turn-out in the election held on Sunday, January 14, Assoumani sailed to victory with 62.97% of the vote.

The electoral commission chief, Idrissa Said Ben Ahmada, announced on Tuesday that Assoumani was the winner in the first round of the Indian Ocean nation's presidential poll.

Assoumani, a military officer by training, first served as the elected president of Comoros from 2002 to 2006.

1999 coup

He returned to power in 2016 following a presidential election, and has been head of state since then – after securing re-election in 2019 and now 2024.

Sixty-five-year-old Assoumani overthrew the government of interim president Tadjeddine Bensaid in April 1999. Assoumani, a colonel at the time, was the army chief of staff.

He held the transitional presidency until elections in 2002.

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