Comorian legislative election, 2009

Legislative elections were held in Comoros on 6 and 20 December 2009; though originally set for July 2009^[1], they were postponed until after a constitutional referendum was held. Elections were then scheduled to take place on 29 November.^[2] Finally, the first round of the elections was scheduled to take place on 6 December, while a second round was slated for 20 December.^[3] The Comoros use a Two-round system, where there are 24 constituencies, each returning a single member to parliament. The remaining 9 seats are filled by appointees from the assemblies of the autonomous islands of the Comoros: Grande Comore, Mohéli and Anjouan. Each island assembly selects 3 members.

There are no real established political parties in the Comoros, but for this election, most candidates supporting president Ahmed Abdallah Sambi campaigned as the Baobab coalition, named after their identifying symbol, the Baobab tree.

The first round took place without incidents on 6 December, but a second round was needed because in most constituencies there was no clear victor (at least 50%+1 one vote). Only in 2 constituencies did the president's party achieve an outright majority in the first round.^[4] This round proceeded to take place as planned on 20 December.

Results

According to the preliminary results released on 21 December, president Ahmed Abdallah Sambi's allies won a majority of seats in the assembly. The opposition won 5 constituencies, 3 of which were on the island of Mohéli.

References