Mogadishu: Voting started on Wednesday in Somalia’s groundbreaking presidential election amid a security lockdown that has closed the capital’s international airport and cleared major streets.
Members of the upper and lower houses of the legislature dropped their ballots into clear boxes in the first round with 21 candidates for president.
Fears of attacks by extremist group Al Shabab have limited the election to the country’s legislators, who will vote at a heavily guarded former air force base in Mogadishu. Rounds of voting are expected to narrow down the large field of candidates to a winner. One candidate dropped out on Wednesday before the voting started.
This Horn of Africa nation is trying to put together its first fully functioning central government in a quarter-century. Years of warlord-led conflict and Al Shabab attacks, along with famine, have left this country of about 12 million people largely shattered.
In a sign of the dangers that remain in the capital, two mortar rounds fired by suspected extremists late on Tuesday landed near the election venue.
While the international community has pushed Somalia to hold the election as a symbol of strength, including the US pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years for political and economic recovery, the vote has been marred by reports of widespread corruption.
The legislators voting on Wednesday — 275 members of the lower legislative house and 54 senators — were selected by the country’s powerful, intricate network of clans. Weeks ago, a joint statement by the United Nations, the US, European Union and others warned of “egregious cases of abuse of the electoral process.”
Examples included violence, intimidation and men taking seats that had been reserved for female candidates, the joint statement said.
With reports of votes being sold for up to $30,000 (Dh110,167) apiece, “this is probably the most expensive election, per vote, in history,” the Mogadishu-based anti-corruption group Marqaati said in a report released on Tuesday.
Among the candidates, many who also hold foreign passports, incumbent President Hassan Shaikh Mohammad is seeking re-election and may have an edge to win a second five-year term.
But rival candidate and Prime Minister Omar Abdul Rashid Sharmarke has accused regional countries of interfering in the electoral process by pushing for certain candidates. “Those neighbouring countries should respect our sovereignty and stop meddling in our affairs,” he said, without naming the states. Various Muslim-majority countries seek a friendly Somali government, including Turkey, which has invested heavily in the country.
