Comoros President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi has signed an African Union-brokered deal, allowing him to stay on power as "interim president" until November. Then, late elections are to be held. According to a statement by the Comoran Union presidency, the agreement that ends the archipelago's constitutional crisis was signed in Moroni, the capital, today. An election timetable is key to the agreement.

The Comoros autonomous islands will hold legislative and local government elections on 2 August, the permanent representative of the African Union (AU) in Moroni, Mourad Taiati has told journalists. The AU official, who was speaking at the end of a meeting in Moroni with the Comoran Foreign Relations Minister, Ahmed Ben Said Jaffar, stressed that the elections were the expression of a “fervent wish” of the Comoran authorities.

A referendum on the revision of Comoros' constitution will be held on 17 May, President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi announced in a message broadcast on national radio and television stations, stressing that the referendum campaign would be held from 26 April to 15 May. “Those who do not want the revision of the constitution are free to campaign against it but they do not have the right to prevent the referendum from being held; a constitutional prerogative devolved on the head of state is a right of the people to exercise its sovereignty,” Sambi declared.

The Democratic Front of the Comoros has appealed to the head of state, Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, to mobilize the people against attempts by France to hold a referendum in March with a view to transforming the Island of Mayotte into its overseas territory.

Moussa Toybou has been confirmed the winner of Anjouan's hotly contested presidential run-off by the Constitutional Court, beating his challenger, Mohamed Djanfari. Mr. Toybou, 46, polled 52.42% of the votes against Mr. Djanfari's 47.58%, official results showed. Unlike his challenger, who was formerly the Vice President of the Comoros federal government, Toybou had been a complete novice in politics.

With preparations for new local elections under way, following a succesful military venture by the Comoros Union government and African Union (AU) troops to restore order to the renegade island by force, deeper humanitarian concerns have emerged. Last week a combined military force toppled Mohamed Bacar, a rebel leader who had defied demands to re-run local elections, deemed illegal by the AU and Union government. Bacar has fled and is believed to be on the French isalnd of Reunion.

Ahmed Abdalla Sambi, president of Comoros, has urged peaceful demonstrations against France after it moved the defeated president of Anjouan island to Reunion. Mohammed Bacar fled by speedboat to the nearby French-ruled island of Mayotte after an African Union backed military invasion.

Comoros demanded on Thursday that France hand over a rebel leader wanted by the Indian Ocean archipelago for crimes against humanity and troops fired teargas to stop protests against the former colonial power. Mohamed Bacar, the 45-year-old self-declared leader of Anjouan island, fled to nearby French-run Mayotte during a lightning offensive by African Union and Comorian forces. The French government said he has asked for political asylum

Troops from the Comoros archipelago in the Indian Ocean have recaptured most of the island of Anjouan after a year-long rebellion, officials say. They said troops backed by an African Union force had taken Anjouan's main city and airport with light resistance.

The African Union (AU) backed military action against the island of Anjouan's renegade leader Mohamed Bacar in the Comoros archipelago had reached "the point of no return", despite an offer for more talks to resolve the nine month stand-off. "We have exhausted all available opportunities to end the political dispute in the Comoros without any success," Membe told a news briefing in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam on 14 March.

The chairman of the African Union Commission blamed the leaders of a renegade island in the Comoros on Friday for stoking a crisis that has prompted the government to prepare an invasion. Mohamed Bacar, the self-declared president of Anjouan island, has defied the AU and the national authorities in the coup-prone Indian Ocean archipelago since he won an illegal election last June.

The prospects for a peaceful resolution to the deepening political impasse between Anjouan, one of three semi-autonomous islands that make up the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros, and the Union government, are becoming ever less likely.
Individual island elections in June reignited hostility between Anjouan and the other two islands in the group, Grande Comore and Moheli. Anjouan forces had killed two national soldiers trying to enforce a constitutional court decision ordering Mohamed Bacar to step down as Anjouan's president.

The Peace and Security Council of the African Union, at its 82nd meeting held on 23 July 2007, was briefed by the Commission, supplemented by the representative of South Africa, the country coordinating the regional efforts on the Comoros, on the outcome of the Meeting of the Ministerial Committee of the Countries of the Region on the Comoros, held in Pretoria, South Africa, on 8 and 9 July 2007, and on the subsequent developments in the Comoros.

The successful second round of presidential elections on two of the three islands in the Union of Comoros has been overshadowed by the continuing political crisis on the third island, Anjouan. The elections on Sunday 24 June on the islands of Grand Comore and Moheli went "very, very smoothly", the UN Resident Coordinator in the Comoros, Opia Mensah Kumah, told IRIN.

The Comorian island of Anjouan has held elections for its presidency, defying a national one-week delay and putting fresh strain on the archipelago's national union, according to a Al-Jazeera report. The government had ordered the delay over security fears after police shot three people during protests on Tuesday against the national president, Ahmed Abdullah Mohamed Sambi.

Comoros has delayed an election due on Sunday on the mutinous island of Anjouan for one week after police there shot three civilians during political unrest, national radio said late on Thursday. The coup-prone Indian Ocean archipelago was due to elect local presidents for its three main islands. The authorities said polls would go ahead as planned this weekend on Grande Comore and Moheli, but Anjouan's would be postponed to June 17.

African Union soldiers were on their way to Comoros on Friday to help keep the peace during next month's elections on the volatile Indian Ocean islands where one local president has refused to stand down. National government spokesperson Abdourahim Said Bacar said 40 AU troops were due to arrive later on Friday.

In an exchange of gunfire, national government troops stationed on Anjouan, one of the three semi-autonomous islands that make up Comoros, clashed with local police on Wednesday, according to local media. Elections for each island are scheduled in June, but the archipelago's delicate power-sharing agreement hangs in the balance.

A probe into more than 30 senior former public officials accused of corruption is proof of the new Comoran government's commitment to tackling graft, Vice-President Idi Nadhoim told IRIN. Moderate Sunni Muslim religious leader Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi was elected president last month in the first peaceful change of power since the country's independence from France in 1975.

Islamist Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi won Sunday's election on the Comoros Islands, provisional results show (May 14). Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi was seen as the favourite and he won 58% of the vote, the electoral board said. Supporters of the cleric, known as "Ayatollah" after his studies in Iran, were celebrating in the streets as early as Monday, confident of victory.