Somali’s 2.7m Voters Bring Nat’l Count to 32m

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http://www.addisfortune.com/Somali%E2%80%99s%202.7m%20Voters%20Bring%20Natl%20Count%20to%2032m.htm

 

Somali’s 2.7m Voters Bring Nat’l Count to 32m

 

The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) disclosed an additional 2,755,453 registered voters from the Somali Regional State, universities and the military on April 16, 2010, bringing the total to nearly 32 million.

 

Somali Regional State has produced 2,524,184 voters, out of which 1,380,512 are male and 1,143,672 female. The remaining 231,269 voters have come from 111 sites, including high education institutions and military camps. These sites delivered 189,923 male and 41,546 female voters.

 

“The number of registered voters has increased from 29,170,867 to 31, 926,320,” Mohammed Abdurrahman public relation officer of the National Electoral Board told Fortune.

 

The number of total registered female voters has increased from 14,067,022 to 15,252,240. The male registered voters also show increase from 15,103,845 to 16,674,280 voters.

 

There are 31 candidates from the Somali Regional State for the Parliament, according to Mohammed.

 

The number of registered voters at four universities and some Somali remote areas are not yet received by the NEBE because these places are remote from Addis Abeba. When these data are received, the total is expected to exceed 32 million voters.

 

“This exceeded the board’s expectation by two million additional voters,” Mohammed said.

 

Special polling stations are prepared for military and civil personnel of the defence forces and students of higher learning institutions because they live far away from their constituencies. However, they can only vote for candidates fielded in the constituency where they had been living before, Merga Bekena (Prof.) chairman of the NEBE said.

 

“These special polling stations handle 700 voters to avoid being crowded at one place,” Merga, told Fortune.

 

A total of 2,205 candidates are running for Parliament in all regional states, of which 1,948 are male and 257 female. For regional councils, there are 4,023 male and 711 female candidates. There are only 31 independent candidates at both levels, of which only two are women.

 

By EDEN SAHLE

FORTUNE STAFF WRITER