A Comorian island held elections yesterday, defying an official one-week delay in the latest sign of cracks in the coup-prone archipelago?s national union.

The three islands in the Comoros, which has seen 19 coups or attempted coups since independence from France in 1975, had been due to elect their individual presidents yesterday.

But the national government on Friday ordered Anjouan island?s polls delayed over security fears, which the island rejected. ?Mohamed Bacar?s supporters have opened the polling stations this morning,? election official Ahmed Mohamed Allaoui told Reuters from the town of Mutsamudu on Anjouan.

?The island?s election commission has photocopied black and white ballot papers, but the voters are refusing to vote. It?s a pretend election,? he said.

The African Union, which has a security mission in the Comoros so the polls run smoothly, has said it and the international community would not recognise the results of the Anjouan election if officials there ignored the delay order.

Police on Anjouan on Tuesday shot three people in demonstrations and stopped national president Ahmed Abdullah Mohamed Sambi?s plane from landing there.

Two soldiers killed in clashes

The latest troubles on the rebellious island came a month after two government soldiers were killed in clashes with local forces, loyal to the island?s then-president Mohamed Bacar. He is standing in this month?s election.

Central government officials say they have not distributed voting materials but Anjouan officials had expressed their determination to press ahead with the elections. Mohamed Abdou, a former prime minister and a Bacar adviser, said there was no legal reason to delay the Anjouan polls: ?If it was necessary to delay them, Sambi should have done it everywhere, not just here.?

Witnesses said elections began calmly on Comoros? two other islands. Second rounds, if needed, are set for June 24.

The three islands, whose total population is about 670,000, retain autonomy via local presidencies under the terms of a 2001 peace deal and share a rotating national presidency.

Sambi?s election last year marked the Indian Ocean archipelago?s first peaceful transition of power since independence.

First settled by Arab seafarers 1,000 years ago and later a haven for pirates pillaging ships across the Indian Ocean, the rocky islands were annexed by France in 1904.

Ahmed ALI AMIR