Somalia: Jubaland polls agency set conditions for candidates

KISMAYO, Somalia - Jubaland state Presidential electoral committee has tabled new conditions on candidates participating in the upcoming presidential elections, Garowe Online reports.

Several candidates, including incumbent President Ahmed Madobe who has been in office for 6 years, have shown their bid to take part in the race for the regional leadership position in the election slated for next month, August.

The aspirants are required to fulfill conditions set by the state committee before the election, including $30,000 registration fee for male candidates, and $15,000 for the female contenders.

The polls agency said each candidate must have a University degree, 10 years of experience in leadership, stayed in Somalia in the last two years, not married to a foreigner and resign from his current post in Federal and regional level.

Jubaland is now in the process of selecting MPs for the new assembly based in a clan-power-sharing model who will then decide who will be the next president of the Somali Federal State.

The announcement comes barely a week after Al-Shabaab car bomb and gun attack at a hotel in the port city of Kismayo which killed 26, including one American, candidate and two journalists.

A suicide bomber rammed a car containing explosives into the Asasey Hotel in Kismayo and 3 gunmen then stormed the building and holed up for all-night hours until they were shot dead by security forces.

Hodan Nalayeh, an 'inspiring Somali-Canadian journalist who loved to share positive stories about her homeland and celebrate its beauty and her husband Fariid Jama, a former Jubaland trade minister were also killed in the attack.

Nalayeh, 43, her mission, according to colleagues and family was to show another side to the country - its beauty and that of its people, while most coverages of Somalia focused on civil war, militancy and famine.

The sitting president Ahmed Madobe has been leading the southern State since establishment on May 2013, a year after Kismayo was liberated from Al-Shabaab by Kenyan and Somali troops.

GAROWE ONLINE