Somalia has delayed elections that were due to start on Sunday after months of a political crisis in the deeply unstable Horn of Africa country, officials told AFP.
Indirect parliamentary and presidential polls were due to open on July 25 with four days of voting for the upper house by state delegates. The election cycle was due to end with a presidential poll on October 10.
“Even though the plan was for the upper house election to start around the various states today, there is a delay, the election may not take place as planned,” a member of the electoral commission told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The delay was due to the fact that federal regions were neither able to submit candidates’ lists in time, nor to form local committees to cast the ballots, the source added.
A spokesman for the federal government, Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimu, told AFP that the elections were “delayed,” without providing details.
Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble, who was tasked by the presidency with organising the elections, had expressed his dissatisfaction to Somali state leaders, Moalimu said.
He “expressed how he is unhappy about the technical delays today,” the spokesman said, adding that premier had called for “the acceleration of the process and (to) resolve the technical issues and the leaders agreed to that”.
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