Somalilandsun – I am calling for the president to go along with the process of democratization by holding civil registration despite the resistance of the political parties; civil registration is a system by which a government records the vital events of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database is called civil register or registry, or population registry. The primary purpose of civil registration is to create legal documents that are used to establish and protect the civil rights of individuals. A secondary purpose is to create a data source for the compilation of vital statistics. Voter card is functional when the people are registered and after collecting the voter card ( polling card) from the concerned offices; a person ( he or she) is able to vote to any political party they may wish.
These are the necessary changes that we want to take place in the electoral system; and whatever political party wants to take the same old system back to function will lose the credibility and trust that they give birth among the masses. Somaliland election from the beginning up to date was for the voters to dip their index fingers into ink after casting their votes for candidates of their choices. There are vulnerabilities to this procedure: the ink can be washed off and a voter can put multiple ballots or election proctors can collude with candidates to stuff boxes with fake votes.
The most reliable procedure is the biometric system, which delivers the capacity to know the unique biological characteristic of each individual such as fingerprints, retinal and facial characteristics. The Personal identification technologies are now affordable and are practical; justice will be achieved and the result will be fair. Thus, it is the duty for every citizen and political party to support the system as it is avoids any malpractice, rigging that has been seen in the previous elections.
It is in the need of the hour to invent a comprehensive restructuring program with perfect system from top to bottom reallocating polling stations in accordance with the population settlements, bringing out an identity card and the voting card system in order to take an end manipulation of human ecology.
We need to renovate and strengthen regulations and regulations governing election commission and the electoral system, bringing our electoral system on par with the developed nations. To that goal, we need to change our election system keeping away from similar incident of the past to occur again because anything that enhances the election system enhances transparency in democracy and above all the government system.
Therefore, The Problems with previous year’s municipal elections should act a clear warning that the electoral process should be redesigned or renovate to eliminate any opportunity for irregularities and not to permit any room for conflict. In the Somaliland context; there is the motivation among candidates to win elective offices by any means necessary. Granted what we saw in previous year’s municipal elections, it is sensible to anticipate even more severe troubles in the coming elections, which offer much higher prizes, unless there is an electoral system that is fraud-proof. Therefore, we must engage in the biometric system to make sure that upcoming elections are free and fair any stakeholder who dislikes the system is tantamount to treason.
By abdirahman Ibrahim Abdilahi
Contact Abdirahman270@gmail.com
