The Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, is holding its first direct local election in 57 years, marking a significant shift towards democracy and universal suffrage.
GLOBAL TRACKER learned that around 1,605 candidates are running for 390 district council seats, with approximately 500,000 registered voters expected to participate.
Al-jazeera media network reports that polling stations across Mogadishu opened at 6am local time (03:00 GMT) on Thursday, with lines forming early as Somalis queued to participate in what President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has called a “new chapter in the country’s history”.
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Election Commission authorities has deployed close to 10,000 police officers and imposed a city-wide lockdown, restricting vehicle and pedestrian movement, as well as stopping flights into the city’s main airport.
Security in Somalia’s capital has improved this year, but the government continues to battle the al-Qaeda-affiliated armed group al-Shabab, which carried out a major attack in October.
Daud Aweis, the information Minister has described the election as a “resurgence of democratic practices” after decades without them, while electoral commission chairman Abdikarim Ahmed Hassan assured voters they could trust security measures “100 percent”.
Somalia last held direct elections in 1969, months before an October military coup that kept civilians out of power for the next three decades.
After years of civil war following military leader Mohamed Siad Barre’s fall in 1991, the country adopted an unpopular indirect, clan-based electoral system in 2004, in which clan representatives select politicians, who in turn choose the president.
The process has historically been deeply contested by candidates seeking top office.