Horndiplomat-Executive Summary Somaliland Non- State Actors Forum (SONSAF) was closely monitoring the process of the voter registration since January 2016 through Domestic Voter Registration Observers and wider civil society engagement on the electoral process.
This has paved the way Somaliland civil society to conduct sequences of policy actions which are promoting how free, fair and timely elections should be the overreaching goal of the country’s electoral process.
Therefore, the Somaliland National Electoral Commission (NEC) has successfully launched the second phase of the voter registration process presumably the voter cards distribution in the regions of Awdal, Sahil and Coastal areas of Sanaag region.
On April 27th, 2017, NEC has held launching ceremonies in the above regions which the Political Parties’ Leaders, EU Ambassador Somaliland/Somalia, DANIDA Program Coordinator in Somaliland, international elections partners, Civil Society Groups, Traditional Elders, Religious Leaders, Regional Governors, Mayors, Universities Students and general public attended.
On 28th of March 2017, NEC has announced that 8, 73,331 valid registrants were registered to vote for the upcoming Presidential elections on November, 13th, 2017. This number wasidentified through careful vetting of the whole registrants based on the Voter Registration Law No. 37/2007.Thus, this stated number of the voters, the voter registration law recognizes as provisional voter list and the final voters list will be produced when voter cards distribution concluded and should be ordered the ballot papers.
Moreover, the Domestic Observers combined with Somaliland Civil Society Election Forum(SCISEF) reported that the voter cards delivery exercise was very peaceful, though bothered a couple of factors included the massive rural communities’ displacement during the drought period which sized across the region of Somaliland, lower voter education which hampered the process of the voter cards display period and the impact of the successive elections postponements.
