President to be elected by politicians behind barricades

HUNDREDS of Somali parliamentarians met yesterday in a heavilyfortified airport hangar to choose a new president in a vote needed to ensure the impoverished and conflict-riven nation keeps receiving foreign financial aid.

The vote has been delayed overand-over due to squabbling within government but must be held this month for a $400 million International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme to stay on track.

It takes place during the Horn of Africa nation’s worst drought in four decades and against a depressingly familiar background of violence due to a war by Islamist rebels, in-fighting among security forces and clan rivalries.

Incumbent President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed seems unlikely to win re-election after losing support in last month’s parliamentary vote, analysts said.

That leaves two ex-presidents among front-runners: Sharif Sheikh Ahmed (2009-2012) and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (2012-2017).

The 36 candidates only include one woman, former foreign minister Fawzia Yusuf Adam. Some 329 parliamentarians from both houses are eligible to vote.

AU peacekeepers guarded the site during an expected two or three rounds of voting which, many Somalis say, is traditionally more influenced by bribery than policies.

Ahmed, a former Islamist, took over as president of a Western-backed transitional government in 2009, establishing the national army and helping push al Shabaab out of Mogadishu. The other former president, Mohamud, was a peace activist and academic. Both were accused of failing to stem corruption.

Despite being cracked by civil war since 1991, Somalia has held relatively peaceful changes of leadership every four years since 2000, though the latest one has been delayed since 2021.

The widespread insecurity means a popular vote remains impossible to hold for Somalia’s roughly 15 million people.

The country has not held a one-person, one-vote election in 50 years. Instead, polls follow a complex indirect model, whereby state legislatures and clan delegates pick lawmakers for the national parliament, who in turn choose the president.

The victor must secure the backing of two-thirds of parliament, which means a minimum of 184 votes. |