In Somalia, 39 candidates will be on the starting line for the presidential election on Sunday. This is an indirect ballot. It is up to deputies and senators to choose the future head of state. This vote is highly anticipated. It should have been held 15 months ago, but has been repeatedly postponed against a backdrop of political crisis. And never has a presidential election in Somalia raised so many candidates.
With our regional correspondent, Florence Morice
Unsurprisingly, outgoing President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, known as Farmajo, is a candidate for re-election, despite the serious political crisis that the country is going through, and while his first term has officially ended. expired more than a year ago. If re-elected, he would become the first head of state to be re-elected in the country’s history.
Facing him are 38 other candidates, including several prominent figures in the Somali political landscape: two former presidents, Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud in office from 2012 to 2017 and his successor Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, as well as a former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire, and the president of the Puntland region, Said Abdullahi Dani. Only one woman is among the candidates, former foreign minister Fawzia Yusuf Adan.
A clan-based electoral system
This high number of candidates is partly explained by the tribal character of the Somali electoral system, based on the balance between the clans, and increasingly criticized. The Somalis also hoped for a time to return to universal suffrage for this presidential election, before the electoral commission decided to give it up two years ago, due to insecurity in particular. This Sunday, it is also in the ultra-guarded enclosure of Mogadishu airport that the vote will take place, in a hangar under the protection of the African Union force.
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