The island nation of Comoros off the coast of East Africa voted Sunday for president in Africa's first national election of 2024.

The polls opened at 8 a.m (0500 GMT) for a vote widely expected to hand a fourth five-year term to President Azali Assoumani.

"I am delighted with this anchoring of democracy in our country," Assoumani told reporters after voting in his home town.

 "There is confidence that I will win the first round. It is God who will decide and the Comoran people," he said.

Around 338,940 people were registered to vote out of a population of roughly 800,000, with a very high proportion of inhabitants younger than the voting age of 18. 

Voting was scheduled to end at 6 p.m. The electoral commission said before the vote that provisional results might be available as soon as Monday.

Assoumani accused of cracking down on opposition

President Azali Assoumani faces five opponents, while other oppsotion parties boycotted the election.

They accuse the national election commission of favoring the ruling party. The election commission has denied the accusation, saying processes were transparent.

Assoumani, 65, took charge in a coup in 1999, and was first elected president in 2002.

He stepped down after one term but returned to reclaim the presidency in an election in 2016, and was reelected in 2019. 

Assoumani succeeded in side-stepping term limits by changing the constitution in 2018.

The move to change the constitution led to mass protests against Assoumani and an armed uprising on one of the islands that the army quelled after days of fighting. Protests have been banned since.

Former President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, a political rival of Assoumani, was sentenced to life in prison in 2022 on charges of high treason over the forgery and illegal selling of Comoros passports.

The archipelago made up of three major islands and numerous smaller often volcanic islands has experienced multiple coups and attempted coups since first gaining independence from France in 1975.

rm/msh (Reuters, AP)