The UCID and Kulmiye political parties of Somaliland, today, reaffirmed that municipal and parliamentary elections must not fall later than November 2019 as, together with Waddani which had boycotted the talks insisting that unless the incumbent NEC Commissioners are disbanded.
An independent mediation committee among whom were former vice presidents of Somaliland made a number of attempts to make Waddani see sense. It failed with the latter standing its ground trying to dictate terms on which upcoming elections could be conducted.
Waddani also wished to increase the number of commissioners from 7 to – at the least – 9 which, the two parties of UCID and Kulmiye had agreed to but only after the forthcoming November elections are held.
Kulmiye and UCID stated in their agreement that with or without the participation of Waddani the elections ought to be held at the allotted time in order to respect international partners’ re-adjusted proposals as well as the integrity of the nation.
Waddani opposition party has been plagued, of late, by frequent oscillations and off-the-cuff, caustic opposition to almost every national move which somewhat frayed its credibility as well as public patience.
“The parties agreed to jointly safeguard the commendable reputation the country earned in conducting democratic elections and not to accept further election delays at all,” the last point of their signed agreement stressed.
The parties requested of the Somaliland Upper House of the country’s bi-cameral Parliament – the Guurti – to respect their proposal and to base their mandatory decision on setting the date of elections on agreements reached including this last one.
The Guurti is expected, today, to discuss the proposal of the two parties, a similar request His Excellency the President of the Republic of Somaliland, Musa Bihi Abdi, submitted to the House on Tuesday (as below) drawing theme from a general time frame which the National Electoral Commission released in December 2018 which emphasized that no less than 10 continuous months would be needed to conduct the elections.
