February 7, 2017 | Daily Monitoring Report
Presidential Candidates Meet Ahead Of Elections
06 February – Source : Hiiraan Online – 196 Words
Presidential candidates, Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke and Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed held a meeting on Monday evening, just days before Somalia elects its new president. The meeting took place at Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke’s home in Mogadishu; also present were strategists from both sides as well as the President of Puntland Abdiweli Gaas and former PM Abdi Farah Shirdon.
Although HOL cannot independently verify what was discussed during the meeting, it’s likely that they were talking strategy and alliances ahead of the February 8 ballot. On Wednesday, 329 members of Somalia’s Upper and Lower House will choose between 23 candidates to elect the Somali president through a secret ballot. To win in the first round, a candidate must get 219 votes, a feat that is highly unlikely.
Only 4 of the 23 candidates will go on to the 2nd round of voting. To be declared the winner, a candidate must win 2/3 of the total votes.Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke and Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed are both billed as top contenders in the race. The last minute meeting between the two candidates is the latest in an election season that has seen its fair share of unexpected twists.
Key Headlines
- Presidential Candidates Meet Ahead Of Elections (Hiiraan Online)
- Voting For Somaliland’s Last Two Upper House Seats To Be Held In Mogadishu Today (Jowhar.com)
- Government Announces Two Days Holiday As MPs Gather Wednesday To Elect New President (Goobjoog News)
- AU Mission In Somalia Seeks An End To The Use Of Child Soldiers In Armed Conflict (AMISOM)
- Invest In Modern Equipment And Training To Counter The Threat Of IEDs Says AU Special Representative To Somalia (AMISOM)
- Fueled By Bribes Somalia’s Election Seen As Milestone Of Corruption (New York Times)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Voting For Somaliland’s Last Two Upper House Seats To Be Held In Mogadishu Today
07 February – Source: Jowhar.com – 112 Words
Voting for the last two remaining seats of the Upper House assigned to Somaliland is set to be held in Mogadishu on Tuesday. The announcement was made by the Somaliland State level indirect electoral implementation team saying that the voting will mark the end of the Upper House elections.
They said the dispute surrounding the two seats allocated for Sool and Sanaag regions was resolved. Nine of the 11 seats for Somaliland have already been filled in voting in Mogadishu. The two houses of the parliament will elect the president on Wednesday. An estimated 329 MPs, comprising of the parliament’s two houses, are set to vote for the president in a secret ballot.
Government Announces Two Days Holiday As MPs Gather Wednesday To Elect New President
07 February – Source: Goobjoog News- 167 Words
Somali government has declared two days of public holiday as the country heads for the presidential election tomorrow. Deputy Minister for Labour, Osman Libah Ibrahim announced Tuesday and Wednesday as public holidays even as security forces lock down the city for the poll. “We are announcing February 7th and 8th as public holidays. We ask all the government workers to rest and stay their homes until the presidential election has taken place,” said Ibrahim.
Major roads within the city have been blocked with both public and private vehicles advised to use alternative roads. All 23 candidates are expected to converge in the city tonight ahead of tomorrow’s poll which has drawn both local and international attention.Residents said security forces were deployed overnight in all streets leading to the airport from the rest of the city. At least 328 lawmakers will participate in the election with the absence of one MP from Jubbaland whose election in a rerun yesterday was contested by the Federal Indirect Electoral Implementation Team.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
AU Mission In Somalia Seeks An End To The Use Of Child Soldiers In Armed Conflict
07 February – Source: AMISOM – 508 Words
The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and the Somali National Army (SNA) are putting in place measures to prevent the recruitment and use of child soldiers in armed conflict, due to increasing cases that are becoming a security challenge in the horn of Africa country.
In conjunction with the British Peace Support Team-East Africa (BPST-EA) and the Dallaire Initiative (DI), AMISOM is conducting a ten-day Training of Trainers (TOT) course for members of the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) and selected AMISOM officials, to equip them with requisite skills to become rescuers of child soldiers in Somalia. “We support and underscore our belief that the security sector actors have a particularly important role to play in protection of children because they are frequently the first point of contact not only with child soldiers but with all children in the operation areas,” said Darin Reeves, the Training Director at Dallaire Initiative.
The AU deputy Special Representative for Somalia Hon. Lydia Wanyoto recommended going beyond international instruments of law, to save Somalia’s children from armed conflict.”It’s not just about Somali children. It’s about humanity. It’s about an African child given a chance to grow up as a child to fulfil their rightful potential in life,” she said in her remarks, during the official opening of the Training of Trainers course, in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, on Monday.
According to Musa Gbow, AMISOM’s Child Protection Advisor, participants will be equipped with skills to train their colleagues back in Somalia, on how to prevent the recruitment and use of child soldiers.Col. Richard Leakey, the Commandant at British Peace Support Team -East Africa (BPST -EA), noted that AMISOM had a critical role in preventing future recruitment of child soldiers.
Invest In Modern Equipment And Training To Counter The Threat Of IEDs, Says AU Special Representative To Somalia
06 February – Source: AMISOM – 544 Words
Effective reduction of the threat caused by Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Somalia depends on continued investment in modern equipment and additional training of security officers in counter terrorism measures, the African Union Special Representative for Somalia said Monday.
Addressing participants at a three-day seminar on countering IEDs, Ambassador Francisco Madeira said extra effort must be made by both the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and development partners to address the challenge posed by the devices which have become the weapon of choice for the terrorist group Al-Shabaab. “In reducing IED threats, education, training, good reporting and exchange of information, degrading the network of the terrorists and investment in equipment to defeat the terrorists is required,” Ambassador Madeira told participants on the first day of the seminar which is taking place in Mogadishu.
The seminar was attended by participants from AMISOM Troop Contributing Countries and partners from the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS), the British Army and the United Nations Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS). The AU Special Representative noted that the poor state of main supply routes in south-central Somalia had provided conditions for Al-Shabaab to continue laying ambushes and use IEDs against AMISOM convoys and Somali national security forces.
The use of the deadly devices on main supply routes has been cited as one of the key reasons restricting response to humanitarian crisis and hampering troops’ access to AMISOM forward operating bases in various sectors. Ambassador Madeira’s remarks were echoed by Hubert Price, the Head of United Nations Office in Somalia (UNSOS), who noted that ensuring main supply routes are safe from IEDs threat would reduce the cost of transportation of goods and services, delivery of humanitarian relief and improve governance.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“Even before this election was marred by staggering corruption, patience was wearing thin. Now, with President Trump pushing an “America First” message, many aid workers and diplomats who have spent years trying to help fix Somalia worry that it could be in Mr. Trump’s cross hairs.”
Fueled By Bribes, Somalia’s Election Seen As Milestone Of Corruption
07 February – Source : The New York Times – 1741 Words
Politicians have been peeling off wads of hundred dollar bills to buy votes. Others have shown up for parliamentary races standing next to a political nobody who was bribed or coerced into running against them, to make the race look fair. In one case, the mysterious candidate was the politician’s maid. This week, Somalia, which has languished without a functioning central government for more than 25 years and has been propped up by billions of dollars of American aid, is holding an innovative, closely watched presidential election that United Nations officials have billed as a “milestone.”
But several analysts, investigators and some Western diplomats say the election has turned out to be a milestone of corruption, one of the most fraudulent political events in Somalia’s history — and that’s saying something, given that the country is already ranked by Transparency International, a global anticorruption organization, as the most corrupt on earth. Somali investigators estimate that at least $20 million has feverishly changed hands during parliamentary elections that will culminate in the selection of the president on Wednesday.
Outside forces like Turkey, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are widely believed to have been buying off presidential candidates to land juicy business deals, spread a harsh version of Islam or spy on American forces. The entire process has been so bad, several analysts said, that the Al-Shabaab militant group, one of the deadliest Islamist organizations in the world, isn’t even trying to derail the vote because the corruption free-for-all almost makes the militants look upstanding by comparison.
TOP TWEETS
@HarunMaruf: BREAKING: All flights to/from #Mogadishu on Wed suspended, at least for several hours due to the elections: Minister
@Adesoafrica: Somalia famine fears prompt UN call for ‘immediate and massive’ reaction
@AbdirahmanCumar: Fueled by Bribes, Somalia’s Election Seen as Milestone of Corruption
@MohamudTarsan: Any presidential candidate who buys MPs votes will not be recognized legitimate president & he is not morally fits to rule
@Goobjoognews: Somalia suspends flights to and from Mogadishu on Election Day –
@DalsanFM: Mogadishu streets empty on the eve of Elections only MPs ,candidates,campaign officials & politicians can move about #Doorashada2017
@AbdirahmanCumar: Down to 22 Presidential aspirants in tomorrow’s‘ #somalia Election as Abdirahman Farole falls out of the race for #VillaSomalia #Doorashada2017
@CapitalFMKenya: Somalia to elect president amid security, drought woes
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IMAGE OF THE DAY
Somalia Deputy Prime Minister Mohamed Omer Arte receives a delegation to monitor the presidential election from Arab league lead by the Head of Arab league in the Horn Africa Zayd Al-Saban and Head of Arab league Election Monitoring group Mr Ahmed Ameen Sultan.
Photo: Radio Muqdisho