Puntland Stakeholders Question Voter Registration Results by TPEC

[Deeq A.]

Garowe ( PP News Desk) — Two days after Qardho Mayor rejected the number of potential voters for the planned pilot local elections, people of Ufayn had taken to the streets to express similar objection.

Last week, the Transitional Puntland Electoral Commission unveiled the number of registred voters in Qardho, Ufayn and Eyl, the three districts whose inhabitants have been granted the privilege to vote during the pilot local government elections. Both Qardho and Ufayn local governments are lobbying Puntland Government to persuade TPEC to revise its numbers.

Demonstrators in Ufeyn object to “fraudulent voter registration results.”

Guled Salah, TPEC Chairman and architect of pilot local elections that bypass universal suffrage stipulations in Puntland Constitution, was upbeat about the voter registration exercise when he told BBC Somali Service that fewer complications might arise when the voter registration “comes to an end”.

If Qardho and Ufayn residents pull out of the pilot local government elections, TPEC would feel compelled to reschedule elections. The decision to conduct pilot local government elections only at three districts at the expense of major cities of Puntland was already unpopular with key stakeholders some of whom look upon the election as a failure to honour Puntland Constitution articles on the rights of citizens to vote.

Puntland State government has yet to comment on what one political commentator describes as “an electoral fiasco and a repeat of 2013 experiment.”

© Puntland Post, 2021

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