Somalis vote in the first one-person, one-vote local election in decades

Residents of Somalia's capital are set to vote Thursday in a controversial local election that marks the country's first-ever one-person, one-vote poll since 1969.

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Residents of Somalia's capital are set to vote Thursday in a controversial local election that marks the country's first-ever one-person, one-vote poll since 1969. Analysts say it is a major departure from clan-based power-sharing negotiations.

The voting of local council members, to be conducted across Mogadishu's 16 districts, has been organized by the country's federal government but rejected by the opposition parties, which have called the election flawed and one-sided.

Somalia has for decades selected its local council members and parliamentarians through clan-based negotiations, and it is the leaders who later elect a president. Since 2016, different administrations have promised to reintroduce one-person, one-vote elections, but insecurity and internal disputes between the government and the opposition have delayed their implementation.

This will be the first major voting exercise overseen by the country's National Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, with up to 20 political parties fielding candidates.

The election will not determine the mayor of Mogadishu, who also serves as the governor of the central Banadir region. That position remains appointed, as the constitutional status of the capital is unresolved and requires a national consensus — a prospect that has grown increasingly distant amid deepening political rifts between President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and the leaders of the states of Jubaland and Puntland over constitutional reforms.