It is not GE but you may cast your ballots like one.
It is a Referendum which has highest power over parliament and supreme court to even dissolve constitution and sovereignty. E.g. you can vote for Singapore to be returned to Malaysia or British colony.
Do you want a Referendum? The peasants of Mayotte is doing it now!
:p
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20090329/twl-france-politics-referendum-mayotte-6b0205e.html
Former colony votes on becoming fully French
AFP
AFP - 27 minutes ago
MAMOUDZOU, Mayotte (AFP) - - The Indian Ocean island of Mayotte looked set Sunday to become an integral part of France after a referendum that could end local traditions like Islamic courts and polygamy.
The island's 71,122 registered voters were asked if they wanted their mostly Muslim island to end its status as a French overseas "collectivity" and become the country's 101st department.
They were likely to say yes, according to most observers, and thus by 2011 complete a process begun in 1974 when Mayotte remained French as the three other islands of its archipelago chose independence and became the Comoros.
Both the African Union and the Comoros administration -- which sees Mayotte as a territory "occupied" by France but which should be reunited with its sister islands -- have denounced the referendum.
Several hundred people marched Sunday to the French embassy in Moroni, the capital of the Comoros, and burned a French flag as they sang their national anthem to protest at the referendum in Mayotte, a diplomat there said.
The Comoros have seen frequent coups since independence and are far poorer than Mayotte, which has remained stable and whose relative wealth makes it a magnet for illegal migrants who make a perilous boat journey there.
About a third of the 200,000 residents of Mayotte are illegal arrivals from the Comoros.
"Our elders fought so that we we could remain part of France. It's up to us to finish that work," said Youssoufou Majouai, a 39-year-old gym caretaker, as he cast his vote in a school in a working class area of the capital Mamoudzo.
"We have wanted this for a long time, to be like mainland France, with good schools and good salaries," said Inoussa Abdallah, 58, as he voted in Mamoudzou town hall.
Turnout was just over 50 percent as polls closed. The result of the referendum was due later Sunday.
The vote follows unrest in three of France's four overseas departments, with the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe being the worse hit by rioting during a lengthy general strike for pay rises that ended this month.
All political parties and trade unions on Mayotte, which lies between northern Madagascar and northern Mozambique and where French is spoken by less than half the population, have called for a yes vote.
The only dissenting voices were some Muslim clerics who fear their influence will decline if French ways are imposed on the population, most of whom speak a dialect of Swahili.
If Mayotte does become fully French, men will no longer be allowed to have several wives, Islamic courts will lose most of their power and equality between the sexes will be enforced.
Mayotte is seen as a strategic asset as Iran seeks to boost its influence on on the Muslim islands off the east coast of Africa.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month visited the Comoros on a brief trip aimed at boosting cooperation between Tehran and the archipelago.
The Comoros federation's president Ahmed Abdallah Sambi trained as a religious leader in Iran.
France currently has four overseas departments, the far-flung remnants of an empire that once spanned the world.
Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean, French Guiana on the northern coast of South America, and Reunion in the Indian Ocean, are all integral parts of the country and thus of the European Union.
Between them they have nearly two million residents.
It is a Referendum which has highest power over parliament and supreme court to even dissolve constitution and sovereignty. E.g. you can vote for Singapore to be returned to Malaysia or British colony.
Do you want a Referendum? The peasants of Mayotte is doing it now!
:p
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20090329/twl-france-politics-referendum-mayotte-6b0205e.html
Former colony votes on becoming fully French
AFP
AFP - 27 minutes ago
MAMOUDZOU, Mayotte (AFP) - - The Indian Ocean island of Mayotte looked set Sunday to become an integral part of France after a referendum that could end local traditions like Islamic courts and polygamy.
The island's 71,122 registered voters were asked if they wanted their mostly Muslim island to end its status as a French overseas "collectivity" and become the country's 101st department.
They were likely to say yes, according to most observers, and thus by 2011 complete a process begun in 1974 when Mayotte remained French as the three other islands of its archipelago chose independence and became the Comoros.
Both the African Union and the Comoros administration -- which sees Mayotte as a territory "occupied" by France but which should be reunited with its sister islands -- have denounced the referendum.
Several hundred people marched Sunday to the French embassy in Moroni, the capital of the Comoros, and burned a French flag as they sang their national anthem to protest at the referendum in Mayotte, a diplomat there said.
The Comoros have seen frequent coups since independence and are far poorer than Mayotte, which has remained stable and whose relative wealth makes it a magnet for illegal migrants who make a perilous boat journey there.
About a third of the 200,000 residents of Mayotte are illegal arrivals from the Comoros.
"Our elders fought so that we we could remain part of France. It's up to us to finish that work," said Youssoufou Majouai, a 39-year-old gym caretaker, as he cast his vote in a school in a working class area of the capital Mamoudzo.
"We have wanted this for a long time, to be like mainland France, with good schools and good salaries," said Inoussa Abdallah, 58, as he voted in Mamoudzou town hall.
Turnout was just over 50 percent as polls closed. The result of the referendum was due later Sunday.
The vote follows unrest in three of France's four overseas departments, with the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe being the worse hit by rioting during a lengthy general strike for pay rises that ended this month.
All political parties and trade unions on Mayotte, which lies between northern Madagascar and northern Mozambique and where French is spoken by less than half the population, have called for a yes vote.
The only dissenting voices were some Muslim clerics who fear their influence will decline if French ways are imposed on the population, most of whom speak a dialect of Swahili.
If Mayotte does become fully French, men will no longer be allowed to have several wives, Islamic courts will lose most of their power and equality between the sexes will be enforced.
Mayotte is seen as a strategic asset as Iran seeks to boost its influence on on the Muslim islands off the east coast of Africa.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month visited the Comoros on a brief trip aimed at boosting cooperation between Tehran and the archipelago.
The Comoros federation's president Ahmed Abdallah Sambi trained as a religious leader in Iran.
France currently has four overseas departments, the far-flung remnants of an empire that once spanned the world.
Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean, French Guiana on the northern coast of South America, and Reunion in the Indian Ocean, are all integral parts of the country and thus of the European Union.
Between them they have nearly two million residents.
