Comoros Islands - Politics

Politics

The Comoro Archipelago is divided between:

• The Union of the Comoros, a sovereign nation formed by the three islands of Grande Comore, Anjouan and Mohéli.
• Mayotte became an Overseas Department of the French Republic (département d'outre-mer) in 2011. This island is claimed by the Union of the Comoros (which considers it to form part of its territory according to Article 1 of its Constitution), but it has chosen to remain French in numerous referenda that France has held to decide its position.

The United Nations General Assembly continued to condemn the French presence in Mayotte until 1994. France, however, used its power of veto in the UN to prevent the Security Council from passing a resolution condemning France.

The African Union judged the French presence on Mayotte to be illegal.

Mayotte forms a part of the Overseas Countries and Territories of the European Union. It should become a Special Member State Territory at the moment that it is made a French Department.

The Comoros underwent a political crisis that started off in 1997 with the separatism on Anjouan. The political authorities on the island had turned the population of the island against the central government, advocating at first reunification with France, and later a greater autonomy bordering on independence.

Since 2006, the Ex-President of the Union of the Comoros Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, originally from the island of Anjouan has been in open conflict with the authorities of Anjouan, a conflict which ended in a military landing of the National Army of Development in order to re-establish the authority of the Union on the island.