NATIONAL MEDIA
21 August – Source: SONNA – 161 Words
The President of the Federal Republic of Somalia, H.E Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, has hailed the visit of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, H.E Mohamed Bin Abdurahman Al Thani and his delegation to Mogadishu. The high-level delegation from the State of Qatar was welcomed by the Prime Minister of the Federal Government of Somalia, H.E Hassan Ali Khaire. The Minister of Ports and Maritime Transport of Somalia and the Minister of Transport, Communications and Ports of Qatar have jointly launched the launch of the Hobyo Port Project. “I thank the government of Qatar for its contributions to the reconstruction of the country’s infrastructure, including the Hobyo Port which is a strategic economic maritime gateway for Somalia and for the region as a whole.” President Farmajo also called on development partners to assist Somalia in rebuilding the country’s economic infrastructures so that the country can achieve its self-sufficiency goal and implement multi-sectoral development projects.
21 August – Source: Googbjoog – 102 Words
Al-Shabaab militants have, on early Wednesday morning, attacked Somali Federal Government forces military base in Qoryooley town of Lower Shabelle region. According to officials, Al-Shabaab has attacked Somali military base in Qoryooley town but the forces have repulsed and killed four Al-Shabaab militants. The attack prompted hours of heavy fighting between the Somali army and heavily armed Al-Shabaab fighters. The Somali National Army has been conducting large-scale operations against Al-Shabaab and seized strategic towns in the Lower Shabelle region Al-Shabaab has been the last weeks increasing military bases attacks in the southern part of Somalia routinely targets AU forces and government bases.
20 August – Source: Goobjoog – 152 Words
Four presidential candidates of Jubbaland state, including the ongoing president Ahmed Madobe, have pitched their proposals agendas before the state parliament for consideration as president ahead of the August 22 vote. Two candidates have dropped from the race before the speech kicked off in the parliament. President Ahmed Madobe, who is seeking to regain his seat, promised, during his speech, that he will liberate Al-Shabaab from Jubbaland region within 18 months, including the capital of the Jubbaland state Bu’aale. He also addressed to accelerate good governance, local government formation and basic community services. Anab Mohamed Dahir, the first woman to stand for the presidency of one of the regional governments in the country, and among the candidates pitched their agendas to the parliament. The JIEBC committee announced to continue to conduct the Jubbaland election on 22 August 2019 despite calls for delays from the international communities and the Federal government of Somalia.
20 August – Source: Hiiraan Online – 181 Words
Somalia’s mobile money platform, EVC, crashed on Tuesday cutting off millions of Somalis from the country’s electronic money pipeline which holds over a billion dollars monthly. The EVC platform powered by Somalia’s largest telecommunication company Hormuud Telecom could not be accessed in many parts of Somalia on Tuesday, according to multiple sources across the country. Hiiraan Online could not reach Hormuud Telecom for comment regarding the outage which affected businesses and individual transactions. It was not immediately clear what caused the glitch, but the service was later restored.
According to the World Bank report in 2018, an estimated 155 million mobile money transactions amounting to about $2.7 billion a month take place in Somalia. The global lender, however, warned that any disruptions in the mobile money system could adversely affect the economy since there are no strong legal frameworks regulating mobile money in Somalia. “Unmitigated disruption in service delivery including transient outages caused by technical glitches could be devastating for the livelihoods of the Somali population that depend on mobile money services to meet their daily needs,” the 3rd Somali Economic Updates notes.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
20 August – Source: Daily Nation – 315 Words
One person is nursing a bullet injury sustained in a crossfire between suspected Al-Shabaab militants and National Police Reservists (NPR) in Kheira Ali village, Bambo Location in Lafey, Mandera County. Another person, a police reservist, is reported missing after the Tuesday early morning incident. Wankara MCA Ahmed Gabnan Ali said the only telecommunications mast in the area was completely destroyed in the attack.
GUNSHOTS
“The enemy struck at about 1 am and by morning hours gun sounds still rendered the air,” he said. The injured man was identified as Isaack Abdi Bulle, an Islamic madrasa teacher. The MCA said bloodstains at the scene indicate more injuries could have been suffered by the militants. “That area remains very insecure and I call on the national government to ensure the enemy is flashed out before the population census happening this weekend,” he said.
MISSING
A police report on the incident states that a police reservist is missing after suspected Al-Shabaab militants blew up a Safaricom mast at Jabi. The whereabouts of the missing NPR officer remain unknown. “The officer in charge of the area reported a shootout between the Al-Shabaab militants and police reservists before a loud bang was heard from the direction of the telecommunications mast,” reads the report. Al-Shabaab militants have remained active in most parts of Mandera, especially in towns and settlements that border Somalia.
ATTACKS
From these areas, the militants have continued to carry out attacks, mostly targeting security officers, their camps and communication masts. They also plant explosives along main roads. On Tuesday last week, the militants attempted attacking a special forces camp in Fino but failed and instead walked into a home shooting dead a police reservist and his father. Shared intelligence reports have since indicated that the militants are planning to disrupt the weekend population census by planting explosives on roads and even abduct officials carrying out the exercise.
20 August – Source: Standard Media – 222 Words
Dozens of fishermen from Kenya and Tanzania are trapped Kismayu in fear of possible electoral violence in Somalia’s Jubaland region. Three Tanzanian fishermen who worked aboard an Omani flagged fishing vessel have arrived in Mombasa after fleeing the coastal city, once controlled by Al Shabaab before it was evicted in 2012. Maritime sources indicate dozens of others are fleeing towards Kenya just before the weekend polls in which incumbent Mohamed Islam alias Madobe is facing close to eight other candidates.
The three who spoke at the Missions to Seafarers Centre, Mombasa said that they fled after it became apparent that there was tension ahead of Jubaland elections due next month. They have left behind 11 other fellow crewmen who include Kenyans and Tanzanians. ”We have not been paid for more than six months and our employer has been toying around with our safety. We were ejected from our hotel and taken to a residential house within the Port City of Kismayu. We felt very unsafe and decided to flee,” Mikidadi George Chausi, a resident of Muheza in Tanga, Tanzania said. The trio managed to buy their own air tickets and took a flight from Kismayu to Wilson Airport, Nairobi after paying $220 each for a one-way trip on board a Blue Sky Air aircraft from where they boarded a bus to Mombasa.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“As for running “second-degree elections” among the rural population, the Administration felt that the most appropriate system was to apply the traditional Somali shir system through which each tribal unit would nominate one electoral representative who would subsequently present himself at an electoral college on a date set for the voting. The purpose of the shir was to make as close as possible a head-counting of the tribesmen present at the gathering. It should be emphasized here that the territory was divided on clan-based criteria.”
19 August – Source: Hiiraan Online – 1595 Words
The Italian Trusteeship Administration in Somalia (AFIS) was responsible to the UN with precise guidelines to follow. One of the immediate tasks of the authority charged with the administration of the territory was to ‘foster the development of free political institutions and promote the development of the inhabitants of the territory towards the independence and progressively participation in the various organs of government” (Article 3 Trusteeship Agreement)
Towards the end of 1950, an important step was taken with the establishment of the Territorial Council (Consiglio Territoriale): in fieri, the first future Somali Parliament. The Council was a consulting body meant to assist the Administration in all public functions, except foreign and defence affairs. Membership of the Territorial Council was open to five categories: (a) Regional Representatives, (b) Political Representatives, (c) Economic Representatives, (d) Education/cultural Representatives and (e) Representatives from small foreign communities.
The first general elections were held in March 1956. (Ordinance N. 6, March 31, 1956) This was a daunting task, not because it was a new experience for the Somalis, but most importantly because it was scheduled to take place with no clear picture of the size of the population called to take part in the election process. In the face of the difficulties involved in organizing credible census of nomadic population, AFIS, the Administering Power, had introduced a mixed election system under which terms the population residents in urban areas, and in possession of electoral cards could directly cast their vote, while nomadic population living in rural areas expressed their votes through tribal leaders. The difference between the two categories of the population consisted of the former being registered in the municipal electoral roll, politically more mature, with past experience acquired in the municipal elections of 1954, while the latter, was not registered, illiterate and politically immature.
As for running “second-degree elections” among the rural population, the Administration felt that the most appropriate system was to apply the traditional Somali shir system through which each tribal unit would nominate one electoral representative who would subsequently present himself at an electoral college on a date set for the voting. The purpose of the shir was to make as close as possible a head-counting of the tribesmen present at the gathering. It should be emphasized here that the territory was divided on clan-based criteria. In fact, in Galkacyo and Dhusa-Mareb, localities in central Somalia, the trusteeship administration traced on the ground a line popularly known as Linea Tomaselli (Tomaselli Line), named after the Governor of the Mudugh Province, and separating the Darod from Hawiye clans. The area east of the line was assigned to the Hawiye, and the area west of the line to the Darod clan families. Each tribal group was expected to exercise their right to vote in the area where their tribal shir was organized in accordance with Ordinance N. 6, March 31, 1956. A total of 616 shir were organized between August and November 1955 for a population estimated at 772,000, a figure greatly exceeding that which was expected from an estimated population of 1, 772, 000, considering women and persons under the age of twenty-one did not have the right to vote.
Grossly exaggerated number of nomadic “voters”
The manifestly exaggerated number of rural voters had to be accepted and was added to the 86,000 municipal electors to give a total of 858,122 potential voters nationwide. Then on the day of the election, electoral representatives and municipal electorate voted together. While it was “one man, one vote” for voters registered on the municipal electoral roll, electoral representatives had a block vote equivalent to the number of votes they received in the tribal shir. Each electoral representative could either ask the electoral committee for a number of ballots equal to the number of the people on whose behalf he was to vote, or cast only one vote requesting the committee to confirm the number of votes he had obtained in the shir. To calculate the total number of votes, the number of municipal electors was added to the number of rural and nomadic electors who had voted through electoral representatives. The indirect vote has cleared favoured the areas which had the most inflated figures relatives to tribal voters. In a number of cases, it was necessary to invalidate the shir vote owing to the efforts of the tribes concerned to inflate their own importance by magnifying their figures. The rural communities were for the most part completely incapable of exercising political judgment and could have but the vaguest idea of what the government was. With the adoption of the tribal shir and the indirect electoral system, a clan institution was being formalized, attaching different tribes to designated electoral districts artificially created by the administering authority……. |
