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Somali Elections Postponed, No New Date Set

Somalia has postponed elections that were were due to start on Sunday July 25, 2021 after months of delays. Indirect parliamentary and presidential polls would have seen four days of voting for the upper house by state delegates. The election cycle was due to end with a presidential poll on October 10. Authorities said the vote did not take place because the five state leaders failed to submit a list of the final candidates. They also said a regional parliamentary committee was not put in place to oversee the vote. Voice of America reports that the chair of the federal election implementation committee, Mohamed Hassan Irro, said the process was on the right track despite the setbacks.


Earlier, the militant group Al-Shabaab threatened to attack electoral delegates. The leader of the group, Ahmed Abu Ubaidah, said they were opposed to the poll process and threatened the electoral delegates.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon confirmed that U.S. forces were behind an airstrike near Galkayo, about 580 kilometers north of the capital of Mogadishu. The airstrike targeting the militant group, was the first such strike in six months, and the first carried out since U.S. President Joe Biden took office. The U.S. carried out 63 airstrikes against Al-Shabaab in 2019 and 53 airstrikes in 2020. Another seven airstrikes were launched in the first two-and-a-half weeks of 2021, before president Donald Trump left office.

InFocus

Omar Abdisalan/AMISOM Photo/Flickr

A delegate from Somaliland votes during the electoral process to choose Somaliland's representatives to the Upper House of the Federal Parliament in Mogadishu, Somalia, on January 8, 2017.

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