Somalia on Monday started electing lawmakers for its 275-member lower house of parliament, paving way for the next phase of the long-delayed presidential vote, reported Africa News.
The first two lawmakers were elected at a voting ceremony in the capital Mogadishu under heavy security. The two seats were contested by four candidates.
Deputy Prime Minister Mahdi Guleid is the first MP to be elected in Lower House elections. He got 97 votes while his only challenger Mushtaq Ibrahim garnered three votes. Also elected to the Lower House chamber of Somalia’s Federal Parliament is Bihi Iman.
The elected legislators were selected by 101 delegates who recently completed a training course in Mogadishu on Sunday.
“I am delighted that today we have officially started the election of the Somali lower house,” Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble said in a brief statement afterwards.
Notably, Somalia has not held a one-man one-vote election in the last 50 years. The country’s last direct election was in 1969 when Dictator Siad Barre led a coup and went on to rule for two decades.
This year’s election will be the third since Somalia got its first internationally recognized government after the civil war.
The 54-member Senate and the 275 members of parliament from the Lower House are expected to jointly elect a new president most probably at the end of this year or early 2022.
The multi-stage election has been delayed more than a year because of political feuds at the highest levels of government.
In April, pro-government and opposition fighters came out on the streets of Mogadishu after President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed extended his term in office without holding fresh elections.
The constitutional crisis was only alleviated after President Mohamed, better known by his nickname Farmajo, reversed the term extension and his Prime Minister, Roble, brokered a timetable to a vote.
