The Union of Comoros will hold its presidential elections on November 16. Interestingly, not every registered voter in the country will have a say on who their next leader will be.
The reason is that the elections laws of this small archipelago of only 773,000 people state that the presidency should rotate every four years among the country’s three main islands: Anjouan, Grande Comore and Mohéli.
Owing to this unique electoral feature, the 2006 elections were limited to candidates from Anjouan and the 2010 elections to Mohélian candidates. This year, it will be the turn of the island of Grande Comore to determine the president.
The primaries will be held on Grande Camore on November 2, and the three candidates to receive the greatest number of votes move on to the runoff where the President and the Vice President are then elected together by universal, direct suffrage in a majority vote.
The incumbent President Ikililou Dhoinine who hails from the island of Mohéli. As of 2008, Comoros is considered by US-based organization Freedom House as the only real “electoral democracies” of the Arab World, along with Mauritiana.
Photo from: http://www.swiofp.net/about/country-profiles/comoros-country-profile
