Polls body sends back Upper House lists over failed 30% threshold
The Federal Indirect Electoral Implementation Team (FIEIT has ordered three regional administrations to reconstitute their lists of candidates for the Upper House after it emerged the three regions flouted the 30% rule for women representation.
In a statement Monday, the Omar Abdulle led team sent Galmudug, Puntland and Jubbaland to the drawing table even as it emerged prominent politicians among them Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke were earmarked for a face-off with a female candidate contrary to electoral rules contained in a September communique.
In the communique, the National Leadership Forum noted that ‘each regional state shall ensure that 30% of the seats of the Upper House will be exclusively contested by women’.
Out of the 19 names submitted by Galmudug, 15 were male while the remaining four seats went to female candidates. In Puntland, 7 female candidates were nominated with the majority 23 being male while for Jubbaland only three seats went to female candidates and male nominees added up the remaining 17 to make a total of 20.
In all the three states, all the female candidates will be competing with male candidates further frustrating any attempts to achieve the 30% quota.
Only South West state which submitted its list Sunday met the minimum threshold with 5 slots reserved for women out of a total of 16 seats.
The FIEIT gave the three states two days to revise their lists even as both Lower and Upper Houses miss deadlines for submission of names. The regional states were supposed to submit their lists by 5th of this month but were given additional two days which they also missed. The election of members of the Upper House was set for conclusion October 10 while clan elders were expected to submit lists of delegates for the Lower House same day.
In effect therefore, the elections of the Upper House face another delay. Goobjoog News has learnt elders are reluctant to release the lists of delegates until they know who gets what in the Upper House.
“They are holding to their guns until they know how the seats of the Upper House are distributed then they can revise their lists accordingly,” a source close to the developments told Goobjoog News.