Somali capital holds first direct election in five decades

Residents of Somalia’s superior are casting ballots successful section assembly elections, marking the archetypal clip successful much than 50 years that voters volition straight take their representatives, a milestone overshadowed by absorption boycotts.

Polling stations crossed Mogadishu opened astatine 6am section clip (03:00 GMT) connected Thursday, with lines forming aboriginal arsenic Somalis queued to enactment successful what President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has called a “new section successful the country’s history”.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 2Somalia’s 2026 predetermination risks a legitimacy crisis
• list 2 of 2Trump recalls dozens of vocation diplomats successful ‘America First’ push

About fractional a cardinal radical registered to ballot for 390 territory assembly seats, with astir 1,605 candidates competing crossed 523 polling stations successful the capital.

Authorities deployed adjacent to 10,000 constabulary officers and imposed a city-wide lockdown, restricting conveyance and pedestrian movement, arsenic good arsenic stopping flights into the airport’s main city.

Security successful Somalia’s superior has improved this year, but the authorities continues to conflict the al-Qaeda-affiliated equipped radical al-Shabab, which carried retired a major attack successful October.

Information Minister Daud Aweis described the predetermination arsenic a “resurgence of antiauthoritarian practices” aft decades without them, portion electoral committee president Abdikarim Ahmed Hassan assured voters they could spot information measures “100 percent”.

Somalia past held nonstop elections successful 1969, months earlier an October subject coup that kept civilians retired of powerfulness for the adjacent 3 decades.

After years of civilian warfare pursuing subject person Mohamed Siad Barre’s autumn successful 1991, the state adopted an unpopular indirect, clan-based electoral strategy successful 2004, successful which clan representatives prime politicians, who successful crook take the president. The process has historically been profoundly contested by candidates seeking apical office.

The incumbent president, Mohamud, who won powerfulness doubly done this system, announced successful 2023 his committedness to modulation to cosmopolitan suffrage.

His authorities secured parliamentary support for law reforms and established a nationalist electoral committee to oversee the transition, a determination that has galvanised large absorption figures, including 2 erstwhile presidents.

An statement reached successful October 2024 betwixt national and determination leaders collapsed amid absorption resistance.

‘More of a symbolic vote’

Two erstwhile presidents person present openly criticised the Mogadishu vote. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed described the procedures arsenic “unfortunate,” attacking what helium called an “exclusionary elector registration process” that lacks legitimacy. Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, known arsenic Farmaajo, claimed the process “opens the doorway to dangers that endanger the information of the country”.

Two important national subordinate states, Puntland successful the northbound and Jubbaland, bordering Kenya, person rejected the model outright.

Major absorption figures, including the leaders of those national states, met successful the larboard metropolis of Kismayo earlier this month, issuing a communique successful which they threatened to clasp their ain abstracted nationalist elections.

While signalling willingness to negociate a “transparent, consensus-based electoral process”, they firmly rejected Thursday’s ballot arsenic premature and illegitimate.

Mahad Wasuge, the enforcement manager of the Mogadishu-based Somali Public Agenda deliberation tank, told Al Jazeera that the authorities had invested important governmental superior successful holding a nonstop election, which was comparatively low-stakes due to the fact that it was a section canvass and offered an “easy triumph oregon casual exit”.

The government, helium added, exercises important power implicit Mogadishu’s governmental scene, truthful wouldn’t person faced a existent threat.

But helium noted “the ballot isn’t supported by Somalia’s planetary partners and the large absorption figures person boycotted it, which is simply a reddish flag”. He characterised it arsenic “more of a symbolic vote”.

The predetermination comes arsenic Somalia faces mounting information challenges successful regions adjacent the capital.

Al-Shabab, an equipped radical seeking the government’s overthrow, launched a large violative successful February 2025 that reversed authorities territorial gains.

The United Nations Security Council renewed the mandate of a UN-backed African Union peacekeeping ngo this week, but it faces large backing shortfalls which could endanger its effectiveness and continuity.

The United States ambassador to the UN, Jeff Bartos, Somalia’s astir important information partner, expressed heavy interest implicit the deteriorating information situation, informing that Washington was nary longer prepared to proceed backing the mission.

The Trump medication has besides recalled its ambassador to Mogadishu arsenic portion of a broader pullback of US diplomats from Africa, a determination wide seen arsenic signalling a downgrading of American interests successful Somalia.