It is a new Somalia that will be born in 2024. The country has launched an overhaul of its political system, with an agreement signed on Sunday between the government and the federated states providing for the establishment of universal suffrage and the transition to a presidential regime.
This agreement aims to materialize the oft-repeated but never delivered promise of voting on the principle of “one person, one vote” from next year, for the local elections scheduled for June 30, 2024, before the elections to appoint parliaments and presidents. regional elections on November 30, 2024. With the exception of the separatist region of Somaliland, this fragile country in the Horn of Africa, independent since July 1960, has not had elections by universal suffrage since 1969, a few months before the takeover of power by the dictator Siad Barré.
Elections have until now been conducted through a complex indirect system, built around the myriad of clans and sub-clans that make up Somali society. This system was regularly a source of tension, power struggles and instability which, according to many observers, benefited the insurrection of radical Al-Shabaab Islamists which has bloodied the country since 2007.
Promise kept
Elected in May 2022, Somali President Hassan Cheikh Mohamoud promised last March that the next national and regional elections would be held on the principle of “one person, one vote”. A first step was taken last week in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland, where district council elections were held on this principle. This election was hailed and cited as an example by the international community.
“In order to harmonize the elections of the Federal Republic of Somalia, the country will adopt a system of president and vice-president. The president and the vice-president will be elected on a single ballot (…) on the basis of the multiparty system”, announces the agreement. This “presidential ticket” system implicitly puts an end to the post of Prime Minister. The next presidential election is scheduled for May 2026.
Elections to local councils will serve as the basis for elections at national level, which will be held by “proportional with closed list”. “The two political parties with the majority of votes (in local elections) will be national political parties that will compete for seats in parliament and for the president,” the agreement explains.