Issue No. 778

One-person, one-vote, one-time?

On Monday, Somalia's Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission announced that an initial 300 polling stations had been identified for voters to cast their ballot in the upcoming one-person, one-vote (OPOV) elections. According to Villa Somalia's rhetoric, these OPOV elections would transform the country away from the 4.5 clan system-- and the first federally overseen direct polls in Somalia in decades. The reality is rather different.

The Chair of the contentious body, Abdikarin Ahmed Hassan, delivered a lengthy statement explaining that the first OPOV elections would be held in June 2025 and that political association registration is open until the end of March. Hassan stated, however, that the 110 previously registered political organisations must abide by the updated requirements and the centralising electoral laws passed late last year. He also said the commission plans to increase the 300 polling stations identified by the previous commission to as many as 800 nationwide. Work demarcating the locations is scheduled to begin next week. And on Wednesday, PM Hamza Abdi Barre visited the commission's headquarters in Mogadishu, pledging his support for the body.

There remain innumerable issues with the plans to proceed with national OPOV elections in the still-fracturing Somalia. Any polls this year will exclude Darood-majority Puntland and Jubaland, with both administrations disavowing the federal government over precisely these kinds of unilateral electoral and constitutional rewrites. Somaliland, too, remains de facto independent and has conducted multiple successful direct polls since the 1990s, including the recent November 2024 presidential polls won by Abdirahman 'Irro. So, with Jubaland, Puntland, and Somaliland all absent, the process will be immediately politically restricted and its legitimacy badly compromised. 

The number of polling stations proposed-- be it 300 or 800-- is also far from enough to deliver a genuine national OPOV election. If 300 stations are placed across the 18 regions that comprise Somalia/Somaliland, there would be just 16 per region. If there is 800, then it is 44. However, with Somaliland, Puntland, and Jubaland all certain to reject the process, the election will be restricted to just a handful of regions-- around 7.5, including parts of Gedo and half of Mudug. Perhaps 40 or more stations per region could then be established, concentrated in Lower Shabelle, Bay, Bakool, Banaadir, and Galgaduud. We will know more in the coming weeks about the locations of the polling stations and whether Mogadishu will bother to pretend it can conduct direct elections in Bosasso, Hargeisa and Kismaayo.

That appears unlikely, as according to Abdikarin, polling stations will be placed in "relatively stable areas that the government controls." With polling stations a highly probable target of Al-Shabaab considering its anathema towards democracy and considering where the federal government can negotiate access, voting will thus likely be restricted to Beledweyne, Dhusamareb, Huddur, Baidoa, Afgooye, Mogadishu, Jowhar, southern Galkaayo, Merca, and perhaps a handful of others such as Luuq in Gedo. It is not just that the Darood will be nearly entirely excluded from the voting, but where polling stations are placed in each of these towns and cities will also naturally exclude certain clans and communities. However, with a single national constituency vote proposed, the federal government clearly does not intend to allow the absence of Puntland and Jubaland to prevent it from claiming these results are truly 'national.' There will likely be candidates from Jubaland, Puntland, and Somaliland in the upcoming elections, but it will be a poor veneer to assert these are representative. 'Control' is relative, but the federal government's has undoubtedly contracted in the past two years.

By accepting that elections cannot be held in Jubaland, Puntland, and, of course, Somaliland, Villa Somalia is essentially doubling down on its own awareness that its influence has become increasingly limited. It has quietly accepted that it can only hold elections where the federal government can negotiate access-- and may seek to fabricate representation in the areas where it cannot. Currently, Villa Somalia can negotiate holding elections in South West State and Galmudug, but the relationship is hardly structural nor reflective of enduring government control. And if there is a dispute over the conduct of the elections, which may well happen, then Hirshabelle President Ali Abdullahi Hussein 'Guudlawe' or his Galmudug counterpart Ahmed Abdi Karie 'QoorQoor' could easily withdraw consent and the legitimacy of the elections are weakened further. 

Those delivering the election are also problematic, with the commission considered a compromised body by many Somalis. A generally reputable Electoral Commission is critical to a successful election, where opposition parties and the majority of the population can believe that political alternation is possible. This was largely present in both Puntland and Somaliland's OPOV elections in 2023 and 2024, where opposition candidates picked up seats and won the presidency in Hargeisa. But no such legitimacy exists for Somalia's national commission, hand-picked by an increasingly siloed federal government that has ridden roughshod over the limited checks and balances of the country's nascent federal system. In turn, these OPOV votes are likely to be considered not true direct polls but simply a Mogadishu-engineered exercise to consolidate Villa Somalia's grip on a diminishing portion of the country.

Some comparisons for the number of polling stations are in order. In Puntland's district council elections held in May 2023, the Transitional Puntland Electoral Commission established 524 polling stations in the northern region's 37 districts-- over 200 more than the baseline number of stations for a national election in Somalia. In Somaliland, meanwhile, 1,227,048 individuals were registered to vote across 2,648 stations across the polity in the November 2024 presidential elections. Five thousand officers provided security, and over 13,000 polling officials were recruited with the help of public universities across the 6 regions. Finally, presuming the elections occur on a single day, the number of voters per polling station will struggle to exceed 500 based on similar polls. If just 300 polling stations are utilised, that is just 150,0000 voters– and only 400,000 if 800 stations are deployed. But other seemingly mundane questions need to be answered. Processes around ballot boxes, who will be counting the votes, and the several thousand polling workers who need to be identified and trained are all vital to a legitimate election. With the implicit threat of violence baked into the body politic of Somalia, the stakes are high.

These elections will not be an expression of true democratic exercise but another part of the ongoing contraction of the polity to a Hawiye-dominated one, with only nominal representation from other clans and further deepening the national fracturing. The numbers alone will deprive it of legitimacy. Perhaps if this was just a trial run akin to Puntland's OPOV trial in three districts in 2021, it would make more sense, but to argue that this will transform Somalia into a liberal democracy is not only wrong but dangerous. Instead, despite pretences, based on this election model, Villa Somalia seeks to ‘transition’ away from the 4.5 formula to a 1.5 formula-- Hawiye plus (under fiscal duress) Digil-Mirifle. 4.5 may be far from ideal, but a 1.5 model disguised as a liberal electoral democracy would be far worse.

The Somali Wire Team