Prospective Somaliland Parliamentary Speaker Alleges Electoral Infringement in Sool

[Deeq A.]

Lasanod (PP News Desk) — Abdirisaq Khalif Ahmed, a Waddani party MP who is also a candidate for Somaliland Parliamentary Speakership has accused local militias in Sool of making difficult for voters to cast their votes during Somaliland parliamentary and local government elections.

“Local militias have prevented many voters from voting. Opposition parties have shown restraint in the face of electoral infringements by local soldiers” Abdirisaq said.

Abdirisaq Khalif Ahmed implied that local militias on Somaliland government’s payroll had resorted to electoral infringement to give Yasin Hagi Mohamud an edge on him during elections.

Abdirisaq lauded Somaliland electoral commission staff for dealing with several incidents of electoral infringement in Sool constituencies.

“Parliamentary and local government elections have been a landmark in the sense that we will have our elected MPs in Somaliland Parliament. The practice to appoint some local MPs on discretionary basis has come to an end” he added.

Abdirisaq had been a Commerce Minister before he resigned in 2015 in protest of Kulmiye party policies. His rival, Yasin Hagi Mohamud, is seeking the parliamentary speakership on a Kulmiye ticket. Yasin and Saleebaan Yusuf Ali Kore, the Information Minister, lobbied against recalibration of constituency seats on the basis of the number of voters.

The current power-sharing arrangement in Somaliland was conceived before Puntland lost control of Lasanod in 2007. Since 2010 the number of voters in key Sool constituencies has been increasing without commensurate rectification of the lopsided constituency representation in Sool.

© Puntland Post, 2021

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