US EditionSomalia's capital votes in first step to restoring universal suffrage
About 500,000 registered voters chose from 1,600 candidates for 390 seats amid boycotts and deployment of 10,000 security personnel, marking a shift from clan-based to universal suffrage.
- On Thursday, residents of Mogadishu voted in a one-person, one-vote poll, the first since 1969 and overseen by the National Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.
- Since 2016, attempts to reintroduce one-person, one-vote elections in Somalia faced delays due to insecurity and political disputes, ending the long-standing clan-based selection system.
- More than 900,000 registered voters were listed across 523 polling stations in the central Banadir region, with about 10,000 security personnel deployed and long queues at polling stations.
- Mogadishu's mayor remains appointed as the constitutional status of the capital is unresolved, but analysts call the vote the most concrete attempt yet to move away from clan-based power-sharing.
- The elections, postponed three times this year, faced opposition parties rejecting the federal government's vote across Mogadishu's 16 districts as flawed, while al-Shabab militant group attacks and heightened security complicated voting.
115 Articles
115 Articles
For the first time in almost 60 years, the residents of Somalia's capital Mogadishu were given the opportunity to vote in a democratic election. Now experts hope that this will have an impact and that the country will continue to take democratic steps forward. "I am so deeply happy and proud to finally have voted," says Mogadishu resident Fahmo Muhamud.
Mogadishu holds first local vote in decades
Somalians voted on Thursday in the Mogadishu region's first direct local election in nearly 60 years, despite security concerns and a boycott by opposition leaders. The election is seen as a test ahead of the 2026 presidential ballot, in a country struggling to emerge from decades of conflict and chaos, an Islamist insurgency and frequent natural disasters. There were long queues outside several polling stations early Thursday, but numbers had d…
On Christmas Day, residents of Somalia's capital will vote in the first multi-party elections since 1969, AP reports. Residents of Mogadishu are voting in local council elections. There are plans to eventually expand direct elections to the national level.
The last direct election was held in 1969.
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