International development partners of Somaliland encourage all stakeholders vying for top places at Somaliland’s presidential and party leadership to respect a roadmap for elections the national electoral commission released Monday.
The partners, obviously frustrated by a seemingly never ending pickering among stakeholders on every single issue that arose including the setting and sequencing of elections to decide the next president and three national parties, were relieved by the decision NEC reached to end speculations, accusations and all sorts of undemocratic threats and muscle-flexing among the parties and the government.
” To move forward, we encourage all stakeholders, including the Parliament, to swiftly resolve outstanding technical, political, funding, and legal gaps as set out by the NEC,” the Partners’ statement said.
The Somaliland electoral body parties’ elections for December this year and that of the President and the Vice President for November 2024 coinciding with the end of the extended term in office of the incumbents.
The NEC timetable and the Partners’ statement, together, leave no room for the government and the opposition parties to sidestep public demands for elections to – if nothing else – keep the Somaliland track record for 1Person-1Vote elections on track.
Since the first successful 1person-1vote popular ballot referendum on the constitution of the country, the nation held seven more such elections the last of which was the back-to-back local councils and parliamentary elections of May 2021. The scheduled elections will further bolster this illustrious record if successfully implemented.
In full, the joint statement read as follows:
