January 26, 2017 | Morning Headlines
Somalia Sets Presidential Election For February 8
25 January – Source : Daily Mail – 235 Words
Somalia will hold its presidential election on February 8, its electoral commission said Wednesday, after months of delays in a tortuous process for the conflict-torn country. Candidates will have until January 29 to register, the commission said in a statement. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, a 61-year-old former academic and activist, is seeking re-election. The vote will come six months after it was originally set for August, following delays in the election of lawmakers because of clan disputes, fraud accusations and organisational challenges.
Despite significant flaws in the election riddled with claims of vote buying and corruption it is still widely considered the most democratic voting process to take place in nearly five decades. The original promise of a one-person, one-vote national poll had to be abandoned because of insecurity, political infighting and a lack of basic requirements such as an electoral roll. An electoral college system was instituted instead, whereby 135 clan elders chose 14,025 delegates who then voted for each of the 275 seats in the lower house of parliament, distributed according to clan. Upper house seats were distributed by region, and were increased from 54 to 72 after complaints of insufficient representation by some clans. Somalia has not had an effective central government since the 1991 overthrow of president Siad Barre’s military regime, which ushered in more than two decades of lawlessness and conflict in a country deeply divided along clan lines.
Key Headlines
- Somalia Sets Presidential Election For February 8 (Daily Mail)
- Two Prominent Clan Elders Killed In Mogadishu Hotel Attack Three Others Injured (Goobjoog News)
- Somalia’s Presidential Poll Committee Elects Chairperson (Goobjoog News)
- US Deports 90 Back Home to Somalia (VOA)
- UN Mission Condemns Al-Shabaab Attack On Popular Mogadishu Hotel (UN News Centre)
- A Bloody Reminder For Somalia: Chaos Is Never Far Away (The New York Times)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Two Prominent Clan Elders Killed In Mogadishu Hotel Attack, Three Others Injured
25 January – Source : Goobjoog News – 203 Words
Two elders who participated in nominating MPs to Parliament in 2012 and selection of delegates in last year’s elections were among those who died in Dayah hotel bomb explosion. One of the elders who was among the 135 respected elders in Somalia, Malak Ali Shine confirmed to Goobjoog News, Malak Malabow Malak Isaaq Kerro from Gerwale sub clan and his counterpart Malak Abdirashid Malak Abdisalam from Yantaar sub clan both from South West state were killed in the attack. Three other elders including Shariff Muhidin Sheikh Adan from Asharaf sub clan, Malak Hassan Bule from Jilible and Malak Abdiyo from Luwaay sub clan clan were injured.
The three are also from Baidao. Shine said the bodies of the deceased elders would be flown to Baydhabo for burial while the injured were receiving treatment in Mogadishu hospitals. The 135 elders were responsible for nominating the members of the parliament in 2012 who in turn elected a new president. In the 2016 elections, the role of the elders was reduced and tasked with selecting delegates from each sub clan who later elected MPs. Internal Security Minister Mohamed Abdirizak said more ten people were killed and 50 others injured. Four Al-Shabaab militants were neutralized by security forces.
Somalia’s Presidential Poll Committee Elects Chairperson
25 January – Source : Goobjoog News – 175 Words
The newly formed presidential election committee has elected Abdirahman Duale Bayle as the chairperson of the committee which will oversee the election of new president. Bayle who is a former minister for foreign affairs will the chair of the committee till the election of Somalia’s top office takes place. Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail Fartaag was named as the deputy chair. Committee formed two subcommittees including security, finance and logistics which will be led Jawahir Ahmed Elmi and candidates registration subcommittees which will be headed by Osman Haji Ali. The committee has already set 8th February as the election date for president of the republic .
The Lower House which currently has 268 members out of 275 and the Senate which is one member short of the constitutionally mandated 54 will jointly elect new president. Presidential candidates will be required to deposit $30,000 fee each to be enrolled for the race. Over 20 candidates will be contesting for the top job in an attempts to unseat President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud who will also be defending his seat.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
US Deports 90 Back Home to Somalia
25 January – Source : VOA – 418 Words
Ninety Somali immigrants who either ran afoul of U.S. law or had their asylum applications rejected have been deported to the Somali capital, Mogadishu, witnesses and officials said Wednesday. Somalia’s ambassador to the United States, Ahmed Isse Awad, told VOA Somali that these immigrants had sent letters to the Somali Embassy in Washington, requesting the deportation. All had been in detention centers or prisons. “Most of them are people whose asylum cases [were] denied through [the] legal immigration process, and others broke the U.S. law and had received final orders for removal from courts in the United States,” he said.
The flight carrying the 86 men and four women landed at Mogadishu’s Aden Adde Airport after stopping in Nairobi to drop off two Kenyan deportees. It was not clear from where the flight originated or who had chartered the plane. Mohamed Isma’il, a member of the staff at the airport, said a number of the deportees appeared gloomy and haggard. “Some of them were happy and smiling, but most of them were very sad,” he said. “A few of them had bags with their belongings.”
Reports about Somalis being deported from the United States have emerged since Mogadishu reopened its embassy in the U.S. in November 2015 after a 25-year absence. Awad said the removal cases of these Somalis “have been dragging for the last three years. We were informed about their cases, and since the U.S. has its legal right to decide who is staying in its country and who is not, our role as the Somali Embassy was to know that they are willing to go back.”
UN Mission Condemns Al-Shabaab Attack On Popular Mogadishu Hotel
25 January – Source : UN News Centre – 222 Words
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) has condemned the coordinated suicide bombing attack earlier today at a hotel in Mogadishu for which Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility and which reportedly killed dozens of people. According to the United Nations, the attack, on the Dayah Hotel (known locally as the Dayax), reportedly killed dozens of Somali civilians and soldiers, while wounding many more. The hotel is located near the Presidential palace and is frequently visited by lawmakers in the capital.
In an interview with UN News, Joseph Contreras, the spokesperson for the Mission, said the attack provides fresh evidence of the violent extremists’ desperate attempts to derail Somalia’s electoral process. Moreover it reflects the terrorists’ frustration over their inability to sabotage the recent voting for seats in the two Houses of Somalia’s new Parliament. As for the scene on the ground, he pointed out that first responders arrived at the hotel targeted by the attack “quite quickly and brought the situation under control.”
“The latest figures that we have been seeing range from between 15 and 20 dead, some of whom were the attackers themselves, some of them Somali soldiers,” Mr. Contreras said, adding that perhaps about half of were civilians and among the dozens of injured were at least 5 journalists. He was not aware if any lawmakers were visiting the hotel.
OPINION, CULTURE & ANALYSIS
“I have been to Mogadishu many times, but this was my first visit in several years, and when I got to town, I was struck by how much progress the capital seemed to be making. There was still plenty of evidence of the chaos-wracked city of old the crushed houses, craters and shot-up walls but there were also new apartment complexes, crowded markets and freshly painted shops selling flat-screen TVs. It was even possible to go out for pizza Tuesday night, something I would never have dared before.”
A Bloody Reminder For Somalia: Chaos Is Never Far Away
25 January – Source : The New York Times – 930 Words
When the first explosion rang out, the men on the hotel patio looked up for a moment, then at one another — and kept on eating breakfast. Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, long ago grew accustomed to such jarring sounds, and nobody seemed surprised by a loud bang somewhere not too far away. It took another, even louder explosion a few minutes later to get everyone’s attention. Something fatal was going on.
A half-dozen of the militiamen who guard the hotel piled into a pickup with their Kalashnikovs and ammunition vests while the photographer Tyler Hicks and I grabbed our gear cameras, notebooks, bulletproof vests, press credentials, bottles of water and climbed into an armored truck, slamming the door tight behind us. We headed for the hospital. I have been to Mogadishu many times, but this was my first visit in several years, and when I got to town, I was struck by how much progress the capital seemed to be making. There was still plenty of evidence of the chaos-wracked city of old the crushed houses, craters and shot-up walls but there were also new apartment complexes, crowded markets and freshly painted shops selling flat-screen TVs. It was even possible to go out for pizza Tuesday night, something I would never have dared before.
The scene at the hospital tore at that hopeful illusion: The floor was slippery with blood. Dozens of wounded people streamed in, bleeding from their heads, faces, feet, arms and backs. Some were covered in fine white dust from collapsed walls. Some lay on steel gurneys as squadrons of flies crawled over their shrapnel wounds. Some were clearly in pain. There was confusion, anger, shouting and a lot of sweat. Talking to witnesses, I began to piece together what had happened. Terrorists had struck at another hotel across town from ours, the Dayah: first with a bomb, and then with gunmen spraying fire at hotel guests. The attack ended with a second bomb.
By the grim standards of Mogadishu, where terrorist attacks have sometimes killed as many as 50 people in an instant, the toll on Wednesday was not especially large. Government officials said later in the day that about 13 people had been killed, and about 50 wounded. No one I spoke to at the hospital had any doubt who was responsible: It must have been the Al-Shabaab, they said, meaning the Somali militant organization that has been terrorizing the country for years. The group later claimed responsibility.