Puntland State dispatches forces to stop voter registration in Somalia’s Sool region

Breaking: Puntland State deploys troops to Sool to block voter registration as tensions spike

What happened

Puntland State authorities have deployed security forces to parts of Somalia’s Sool region to halt a federally backed voter registration drive, residents and local officials said Monday, deepening an already volatile political standoff in the country’s northeast.

Convoys moved into Boocame district and the nearby Falariyale area—territory where electoral commissions from the federal government and a newly declared Northeastern administration had begun registering voters for local one-person, one-vote polls, according to residents who spoke by phone. Shops shuttered early in Boocame as people gauged the risk of clashes, several residents said.

Both locations are home turf of Puntland State’s vice president, Ilyas Osman Lugatoor, who has publicly rejected any voter registration led by authorities he does not recognize. Local sources say he has mobilized clan-based fighters and warned that any attempt to proceed with registration would be resisted. In recent days, he toured the contested districts, declared them integral to Puntland State and inaugurated small development projects funded by his administration—part politics, part signaling in a region where lines of authority are fiercely disputed.

Why it matters

At stake is more than a registration exercise. Somalia’s federal government has been pushing to revive one-person, one-vote elections after years of indirect ballots mediated by clan elders—what Somalis call the 4.5 system. But the new effort touches raw nerves in places like Sool, where competing authorities claim legitimacy on the back of local loyalties and recent conflict, and where the question “who gets to register whom” is anything but administrative.

Any flare-up around Las Anod and its hinterlands risks reigniting violence that displaced hundreds of thousands of people during last year’s fighting, when the North Western State of Somalia administration was forced out and a Las Anod-based Northeastern authority declared itself with support from Mogadishu. Last week, that administration’s leader, Abdikadir Ahmed Firdhiye, stood alongside Somalia’s interior minister to launch voter registration in Las Anod—an event intended to signal progress toward local democracy but viewed in Garowe as a provocation.

On the ground

Residents described a tense calm late Monday. “People are staying close to home. Everyone is watching to see what the forces will do,” said a community worker in Boocame, who asked not to be named given the sensitivity of the situation. Independent verification remains difficult; phone networks are patchy outside district centers, and both Puntland State and the Northeastern administration control access to information in areas they influence.

No casualties or direct clashes were reported by evening, but elders in the area were said to be urging restraint and asking both sides to let local mediation run before any security operations begin. In Somalia, such elder councils—longstanding assemblies built around clan consensus—often deescalate flashpoints faster than formal institutions.

The politics behind the deployment

Puntland State, one of the country’s oldest federal member states, has for months opposed the emergence of the Northeastern administration centered on Las Anod, seeing it as illegitimate and dangerous to the federal balance. Relations between Garowe and Mogadishu are already strained over questions of resource control, power-sharing, and the design of national elections.

That rift is magnified in Sool, a region that has sat at the fault line of Somali polity for years—from competition with North Western State of Somalia to intra-federal wrangling today. Here, voter registration becomes a litmus test of authority: Is the state that registers you the state you belong to? For Vice President Lugatoor and his supporters, the answer is clear. For federal officials promoting one-person, one-vote across contested areas, the symbolism is equally powerful.

Risks and ripple effects

The danger is that a technical process morphs into an armed confrontation that neither side can fully control. Clan alignments can mobilize quickly. Youth fighters—sometimes armed, sometimes just emboldened—can turn standoffs into skirmishes in hours. And all of this unfolds as Somalia is trying to maintain momentum against al-Shabab and to meet benchmarks in security and governance, including commitments tied to international debt relief and donor support.

In 2023, fighting around Las Anod displaced large swathes of the population and strained aid systems. Humanitarian agencies have repeatedly warned that any renewed conflict would hit civilians first—particularly women and children in already fragile communities. An election-season confrontation risks sending families back into displacement just as some are returning.

What we know—and don’t

• Confirmed: Puntland State forces have moved into Boocame and Falariyale, according to residents and local sources. No independent casualty reports so far.
• Confirmed: Federal and Northeastern electoral bodies recently began registering voters in the area; the Northeastern administration launched registration in Las Anod last week.
• Confirmed: Puntland State’s vice president has publicly opposed the registration and signaled he will block it in areas he claims fall under Puntland State jurisdiction.
• Unclear: The specific orders issued to Puntland State troops, and whether federal authorities will attempt to continue registration under protection.
• Unclear: The timeline for any negotiations between elders, federal officials, and Puntland State leaders to deconflict the process.
• Unclear: The role international partners might play in urging restraint or verifying voter processes in contested areas.

The broader picture

Somalia’s pivot toward direct voting has always been an uphill climb: building trust in electoral institutions, securing ballot sites in a country still fending off insurgents, and navigating federal-state rivalries where administrative maps are political statements. Puntland State itself ran local one-person, one-vote polls in some districts last year—an experiment hailed by many Somalis—but the enthusiasm has since collided with hard realities of security and statecraft. Now, with Mogadishu promoting registration in zones Garowe disputes, the question is whether democratization can proceed without first settling the boundaries of authority.

There is also the matter of precedent. If troop deployments become the default response to voter registration in contested areas, the transition to direct elections could stall—and with it, a much bigger promise: to move Somalia beyond elite bargains toward a more inclusive, citizen-centered politics.

What to watch next

Eyes will be on statements from the Puntland State presidency and Somalia’s interior ministry, and on whether neutral mediators—elders, clerics, or respected civic groups—can create a buffer that allows registration to pause while talks begin. The electoral commissions, meanwhile, will need to explain how they intend to operate in disputed districts without deepening fault lines they are not equipped to fix.

Somalia’s political transitions have rarely followed a straight line. But amid the dust of armored pickups and the hush of closed market stalls in Boocame, one question echoes: can a country knit together by clan, conflict, and resilience find a common register for its future voters without tearing at the seams of its present?

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.