 As a result, the council was ignored by the true elders of the island.After Taki's death, a military coup in 1999, the nation's eighteenth since independence in 1975, installed Azali in to power.Colonel Azali Assoumani seized power in a bloodless coup in April 1999, overthrowing Interim President Tadjidine Ben Said Massounde, who himself had held the office since the death of democratically elected President Mohamed Taki Abdoulkarim in November, 1998.