Somalia’s National Independent Electoral Commission (NIEC) has announced plans to register millions of Somalis to participate in what would be the country’s first popular elections in more than a half-century.
NIEC Chairperson Halima Ismail Ibrahim told VOA that the commission would start registering voters in March 2020 in a campaign that could last months to reach voters in Mogadishu and the regions.
She said hundreds of registration centers would be open to biometrically register voters.
“At minimum, we want to register 2 [million] to 3 million Somalis,” Ibrahim said in an interview this week.
The Somali population is estimated at 12 million, but realistically only half can be reached and registered, according to Ibrahim.
“Many people are living outside the country. Many are in refugee camps. Somaliland is separate. There are areas where [militant group] al-Shabab is present where significant number of people live,” she said.
Registering voters to directly elect their parliament representatives would be a major departure from recent elections in the country. In the 2017 election, 14,000 electoral delegates chose the current parliament, while in the 2012 election only 135 clan elders were given the power to select the MPs.