May 26, 2006: South Africans have just completed an "elections monitoring" mission in the Comoros. Under a deal brokered by the African Union and the UN, Comoran troops were restricted to barracks during the May election, and some 400 South Africans, and some troops from other countries, assumed security duties. In order to maximize the effects of the experience gained, the unit the South Africans sent to the Comoros was a composite one, made up of contingents from each of the army's nine infantry battalions.

The Comoros has always been a bit shaky when it came to running things on the up-and-up. Lots of coups (19 in the last 30 years) and general disorder. Thus the need to lock down the local military and bring in foreign troops to assure a fair election. That gives the new government more legitimacy than would normally be the case. An excellent application of peacekeeping troops.

The winner was an Islamic cleric with a reputation of honesty and religious tolerance. Some 90 percent of Comorans are Moslems.