Summary
· The 64-year-old leader of the small Indian Ocean archipelago of the Comoros, with less than a million people, succeeds Senegal's Macky Sall for the rotating leadership of the continental body
Moroni. Azali Assoumani, who took over as African Union chair
for the next 12 months, loves power and has not hesitated to throw opponents in
jail or change the law to remain in control.
The 64-year-old leader of the small
Indian Ocean archipelago of the Comoros, with less than a million people,
succeeds Senegal's Macky Sall for the rotating leadership of the continental
body.
Assoumani is listed among a dozen
sub-Saharan African leaders who have sought to extend their time in office
through constitutional change in recent decades.
A former army chief-of-staff,
colonel Assoumani initially came to power in a coup in 1999, in one of the many
military takeovers that have rocked the islands since independence from France
in 1975.
In 2002 he won the presidential
election for the Union of Comoros, which is made up of three semi-autonomous
islands, each with its own separate president.
He had reluctantly handed over to
civilians in 2006, under a new constitution that establishes a rotating
presidency between the three islands of the Union - Grande-Comore, Anjouan and
Moheli.
He then retired into farming before
returning to politics and winning re-election in 2016 in a vote marred by
violence and allegations of irregularities.
Leaving power "was a
mistake" and not to be repeated, Assoumani once told a diplomat in the
capital Moroni.
In 2019 he staged another round of
polls after persuading Comorans to vote in a controversial referendum to
support the extension of presidential mandates from one five-year term to two,
rotating among the three islands.
The change shocked a fragile balance
of power established in 2001 that sought to end separatist crises on Anjouan
and Moheli and halt the endless cycle of coups.
He then won the 2019 polls with
nearly 60 percent of the votes cast, an outcome rejected by the opposition, as
well as many observers.
Since then critics have accused
Assoumani of creeping authoritarianism.
Two months ago his arch-rival and
predecessor ex-president Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, was handed a life sentence for
high treason for selling passports to stateless people living in the Gulf.
A lawyer and rival in the last
presidential vote Mahamoudou Ahamada sees the ascension to the honorary
chairmanship of the AU as "a failure for the continental
organisation".
"Only African dictators who do
not care about their respective populations can be delighted with this
appointment," he said, accusing Assoumani of suppressing dissent and
"violation of human rights in general".
But Assoumani's diplomatic adviser
Hamada Madi said Comoros's new role was "magnificent".
"It is clear that a country
like ours, which is an island with less than 900,000 souls, can have the
confidence of all the other 54 (African) countries, even larger ones,"
Madi, told AFP. "This is simply magnificent".
Born on January 1, 1959, Assoumani
trained at the Royal Moroccan Military Academy in Meknes and the Ecole de
Guerre in Paris.
He is married and has four children.
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