Somalia's Puntland votes for new president after months of political crisis

GAROWE, Somalia - Somalia's oldest federal state of Puntland is set to elect a new president who will be leading for the next five years, an exercise set to kick off this morning in the regional assembly which is mandated by the constitution to vote in the new state leader. 

For the last five years, Said Abdullahi Deni has been in charge and is set to defend his seat, where 66 lawmakers will be voting to elect the new leader. The regional assembly is properly constituted having been picked by traditional elders. 

There were plans to have universal suffrage polls but the opposition opposed the move, paving the way for an indirect system that has been in use for the last 25 years, since the inception of the federal state. An agreement was reached much later. 

Some of the top candidates seeking to defeat Deni include Mohamed Abdirahman Mohamad, a security and policy expert who is also a media founder. He is the brain behind the Garowe Online and Radio Garowe, which are instrumental in the dissemination of information in Somalia.

Others are prominent politicians who held various positions at federal and regional levels. They include former Foreign Affairs ministers in the Federal Republic of Somalia Ahmed Awad and Abshir Omar Jama,  who resigned recently from the government.

Also challenging for the seat is Guled Salah, the immediate former Transitional Puntland Elections Committee  (TPEC) chair. All candidates campaigned in the regional assembly by pronouncing their manifesto for the people of Puntland on Sunday.  

The 66 MPs will vote to elect the new president in what would effectively determine the future of the region.  Puntland is the most stable state within the federal republic of Somalia and her stability is key in the realization of Somalia’s long-term peace agenda. 

GAROWE ONLINE