Voters in Comoros go to the polls on Monday, the 30th for a politically explosive referendum overshadowed by a clampdown and an attempted assassination just days before the vote.
Burdened by a long history of turbulence, the Indian Ocean archipelago is being asked to vote on changes to the constitution put forward by President Azali Assoumani.
Critics say that Assoumani’s scheme is to retain power beyond 2021 when his currently non-renewable single term would otherwise end.
Under the current constitution adopted in 2001, power rotates every five years between the country’s three main islands as a means of balancing power in the coup-prone country.
If the government wins the referendum, this arrangement would be scrapped and replaced by a president who would be elected for a five-year tenure, renewable for one term.
Opposition parties have lashed the referendum as illegal and the process as murky.