Somalia’s electoral agency pushes for more women in Parliament
Thursday November 18 2021
A Somali polling agent (right) explains the voting procedure to a voter before she casts her ballot in Baidoa during a past election. FILE PHOTO | AFP
Somalia’s federal electoral agency has urged all regional polls supervisors to ensure that at least 30 percent of seats in the Lower House go to women.
In a letter to state electoral teams, the federal agency also published a table showing the number of legislators each state will vote for, out of the total 275 MPs and the respective 30 percent women legislators.
The 275 seats are shared between the five federal states and Benadir.
Elections for the Lower House, also known as the House of the People, were scheduled to begin on Tuesday with voting staggered until December 24. However, the elections did not take off.
To get about 30 percent of women MPs, the general rule is that every clan that votes for more than two MPs should elect at least one woman.
The Federal Electoral Implementation Team (FEIT) statement said, “All clans that are allocated with the election of MPs and the SEITs in each state or constituency are hereby urged to conduct the elections, bearing in mind the stated women quota to generate a minimum of 82 women legislators.”
Somalia’s Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble on Monday travelled to Dusamareb town, the capital of Galmudug, and met local State Electoral Implementation Teams (SEIT) and representatives of FEIT in the constituency.
PM Roble urged both teams to ensure a transparent and reliable electoral process.
“I hereby urge you to refrain from anything that contradicts the agreed electoral modalities,” he told the teams in Galmudug, a message that will also apply to all other teams in the 11 constituencies.