Somaliland Has Presidential Elections
Jun 27, 2010
People voted in large numbers in the breakaway republic of Somaliland in northeastern Somalia in a presidential election between three candidates Saturday.
"I have voted for my country's welfare, I am hopeful for positive changes soon," local resident Sacdiya Abdi, who caste her vote on the early morning in the capital of Hargeisa, told The Tiziano Project by phone. "I pray for a peaceful and satisfactory election," she said.
Thousands of voters lined up at polling stations as security forces came out en masse to diminish threats of violence from Al-Shabaab.
"We have closed the border and limited the movement of vehicles except those we authorized," Abdullahi Abdi, a senior police commander, told The Tiziano Project by phone from Hargeisa.
"We should not allow our enemy to disable our democratic life and election," he added.
Al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane broadcast a recorded threat on local radio stations in Mogadishu, warning voters from turning out in order avoid violence.
"I am telling them not to go to polling booths for the so-called democracy," he said.
The peaceful republic has been more stable than the rest of Somalia since the country collapsed and Somaliland declared independence in 1991 but has failed to gain international recognition as an independent state.
The incumbent president, Dahir Riyale Kahin, is challenged by two opposition parties represented by candidates Faisal Ali Warabe of UCID and Ahmed Silanyo of the the Kulmiye Party.
"The voting ended at 6:20 p.m. without violence or reports of fraud," Barkhad Ismael, a journalist in Hargeisa, told The Tiziano Project. The winner of the election has not yet been announced.
Kulmiye is the main opposition party to UDUB, which is the party of the current president.
Critics accuse the current Somaliland president of not doing enough for development projects and blame him for rising unemployment.
Somaliland is bordered by Ethiopia in the south and west, Djibouti in the northwest, the Gulf of Aden in the north and the Somalian region of Puntland in the east, covering most of the territory of the former British Somaliland protectorate.
Great! Let the democracy get support in the anarchy country! Defy extremists crazy words.
Alex
June 27, 2010 8:39 AM | Reply