Somalilandsun: The registration of voters will start on the last Sunday in last week of this month.
The announcement stating the date slated as 29th November 2020 was made by the Head of State H.E. Musa Bihi Abdi over the week.
The President noted that following a notification to his office by the National Elections Commission dated 28th of October, he thus scheduled the last Sunday of this month to be the day whose date specified above is commencement of the vital exercise for electioneering process for the upcoming parliamentary and civic elections. Parliamentary and local council elections have been repeatedly delayed for various reasons including a long-running disagreement between the incumbent party of Kulmiye and Waddani and UCID opposition parties of Somaliland. The current parliament was elected in 2010.
The dispute between the political parties was related to the National Election Commission itself where at one time Waddani party demanded its dissolution.
In addition to the disputes, the actual election law itself was in draft and was recently passed by parliament without a much-anticipated quota for women and minorities in Somaliland.
Somaliland National Election Commission tweeted “Pursuant to Article 44 of the Electoral & Voter Registration Law, Act No.91/2020 and based on the Consultations with the National Electoral Commission, the President of the Republic of Somaliland today has issued a Presidential Decree on the start of Voter Registration” following the release of the Presidential decree announcing the date for the voter registration.
In preps for the for the now decreed dates the Somaliland National Electoral Commission (NEC), undertook mock voter registrations voter registration exercises in the regional capitals of Daadmadheedh and Hawd, Oodweyne and Balligubadle, respectively, saw long lines of would-be voters queuing for new cards.
The well-coordinated exercises of September 2, 2020 aimed to achieve two ends. The first being to assess how much effort will be needed to change cards for voters who had – since the last registration – moved domiciles. The second objective was to register new voters who have either come of age since then or had not registered previously or whose first cards had been cancelled for one reason or another.
By M.A. Egge
