Somalia’s Election Dilemma: Sharmarke’s Warning and the Road to Credible Polls
In a country where ballots are often counted long before they are cast, former Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke is sounding a familiar alarm. If regional states are again placed in charge of managing Somalia’s next parliamentary elections, he warns, the result will be more of the same: contested seats, quiet coercion, and a crisis of legitimacy that bleeds into security and governance.
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“It would be a grave mistake if regional states were given the power to manage the elections once more,” Sharmarke said, arguing for an independent national commission with authority that regional presidents cannot bend. “Even if the number of voters is increased, the outcome will not change.”
What’s at stake
Somalia is debating the rules of its next vote at a decisive moment. Years of incremental progress and periodic paralysis have left the political class at a crossroads: keep the current, heavily mediated system in which regional authorities and traditional elders shape the electoral map, or take a leap toward a unified, national process that might finally put the country on a path to one-person-one-vote.
Sharmarke’s critique is both blunt and widely shared among reformers: the last two election cycles entrenched the power of regional leaders and their allies, who were accused of “looting seats” by determining which delegates voted and who could stand. In 2016, roughly 14,000 appointed delegates chose members of parliament. In 2021–2022, that number grew to around 27,000, with 101 delegates assigned to each of the 275 Lower House seats. The expansion did not, by many accounts, dilute elite control. It just multiplied the number of people to manage.
The mechanics of influence
Somalia’s current system—born of necessity after state collapse—relies on a patchwork of federal member states, clan elders, and ad hoc electoral bodies. In theory, a federal electoral team worked alongside state-level committees to run the last polls. In practice, critics say, regional administrations handpicked key players and steered outcomes. Disputes were handled by temporary panels that lacked teeth and independence. Many candidates filed complaints; few were resolved.
Sharmarke focuses on this weak link: “The lack of a neutral mechanism to address grievances allowed electoral theft to go unpunished,” he said. He wants a single, impartial national body that selects and supervises election officials across all regions and adjudicates disputes without fear or favor. To him, anything less will perpetuate cycles of mistrust that Somalia cannot afford.
The hard path to an independent commission
There is precedent for going national. A federal electoral commission—Somalia’s National Independent Electoral Commission (NIEC)—has existed in various forms and has at times pushed voter registration pilots and legal frameworks for direct voting. But security, political buy-in, and logistics have repeatedly slowed momentum. Al-Shabab’s insurgency and the fragmented nature of local governance make registering voters and protecting polling stations more than a technical lift—they are a test of the state’s reach.
Other democracies wrestling with insurgency have built credible layered systems—think of Afghanistan’s temporary success installing biometric voter checks or Nigeria’s gradual improvements in independent oversight. Yet both examples also offer cautionary tales: without elite consensus, legal clarity, and security coordination, technology and new commissions can become new battlegrounds rather than solutions.
Regional power and the fear of “capture”
Somalia’s federal states—Puntland State, Jubaland, South West, Galmudug, and Hirshabelle—are power centers in their own right. They shape security priorities, absorb donor funding, and command loyalty. Handing them control of electoral machinery, Sharmarke argues, is akin to letting referees play on the teams. The 2021–2022 stalemate, especially the Gedo/Jubaland dispute, showed how disagreements at the state level can freeze national timelines and inflame clan tensions.
Advocates for regional control counter that local leaders, not Mogadishu, best understand conditions on the ground and can keep the process moving when the center falters. They warn that a strong national commission could become a new instrument of federal overreach. This is the heart of Somalia’s dilemma: how to build a national election that respects federalism but is not captured by it.
A moment to reset the rules
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has promised to steer Somalia toward universal suffrage within his term, a pledge that inspires hope and skepticism in equal measure. Puntland State conducted limited local one-person-one-vote polls in a handful of districts in recent years, offering a glimpse of what could be possible. But scaling local experiments into a nationwide parliamentary election requires a coherent blueprint, money, and time—three resources Somalia rarely has all at once.
There are concrete steps that could bridge the divide:
- Establish a truly independent national electoral commission with a transparent appointment process and a fixed, protected budget.
- Create a standing, independent dispute resolution body with clear timelines and the power to overturn tainted results.
- Develop a phased voter registration plan, starting in secure districts and expanding as conditions allow, with auditable rolls and safeguards against coercion.
- Clarify the role of federal member states: they can provide logistics and security, but they cannot pick delegates or election officials.
- Protect political inclusion: ensure women’s representation moves toward the 30% target and safeguard seats for minority communities that often get sidelined in elite bargaining.
Security is not a side note
No election architecture can survive if voters, candidates, and poll workers feel unsafe. Al-Shabab has attacked hotels, government buildings, and election-linked gatherings. A credible plan would pair electoral reform with intensified security operations, community-based protection, and partnerships with local authorities who command trust. The alternative—another rushed, elite-driven indirect vote under threat—risks perpetuating the very grievances that militants exploit.
The cost of repeat cycles
Somalia’s partners—regional neighbors, the African Union, the United Nations, the European Union, and a constellation of donors—have long urged inclusive, credible elections. The message behind Sharmarke’s warning is that legitimacy is not a diplomatic talking point; it is the currency of state-building. When parliamentary seats are viewed as negotiated spoils, compromises in parliament become harder, national security plans stall, and citizens lose patience with a political class that appears to trade offices, not ideas.
There is also the moral ledger. Every contested seat crowds out a young reformer who believes public service can be more than clan arithmetic. Every unaddressed complaint is a signal that rules are flexible for the powerful. The country has no shortage of talent eager to lead; what it lacks is an electoral door that opens based on consent rather than connections.
What kind of federation does Somalia want?
Sharmarke’s call will not be popular with some regional leaders. But it forces a useful question: Can Somalia design a national election that neither surrenders to state capture nor erases federalism? Can it build an independent commission that is strong enough to referee, humble enough to listen, and resilient enough to organize a vote in a country still fighting a war?
Somalis, and their friends abroad, know this will not be solved by communiqués alone. It will take political courage, clear laws, and the mundane discipline of administration—voter lists, training, warehouses, audits. It will also take trust, that rarest commodity in Mogadishu politics. If the next election is to be more than a repeat of the last, that trust must be earned not by promises, but by rules that apply to everyone.
Sharmarke has thrown down the gauntlet. The question now is whether Somalia’s leaders will pick it up—or kick it down the road, again.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
