Somalia misses last-ditch efforts to resolve election impasse

The failure to kick off the talks came after a dispute over the venue with Jubaland and Puntland proposed to shift the place to Mogadishu in order for the opposition candidates and civil society groups to attend it.

News Keydmedia Online
15 February 2021

MOGADISHU, Somalia – The outgoing Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo failed to hold the conference he recently called for in Garowe on February 15 in the latest bid to resolve the poll crisis.

The political leaders of the country are under increasing pressure from the international community to convene an urgent inclusive dialogue to reach a broad-based consensus on the contentious issues.

The failure to kick off the talks came after a dispute over the venue with Jubaland and Puntland proposed to shift the place to Mogadishu in order for the opposition candidates and civil society groups to attend it.

There were attempts to hold a preparatory meeting in Baidoa by technical committees from both the Somali government and the Federal States to pave the way for the top leaders’ much-anticipated summit.

Hope dashes for a solution to the ongoing deadlock over the electoral process as the legal mandate of the president expired on Feb. 8 with no clear path to move the country out of the future uncertainty.

The Federal government and the Federal Member States inked an electoral agreement on September 17 which failed to yield fruits after Farmajo rejected to pull out troops from Gedo, the epicenter of the rift.

Farmajo led the nation in a power vacuum and unprecedented political and security situation as his government invested time in the demolition of the Federal States and sowing division among the public.

Somalia had been without a functional and strong government for three decades and went through a bloody conflict that claimed the lives of thousands of people and forced millions to flee the country.

KON English News Desk