Lower House committee to unveil proposed electoral model in new report today

The Lower House ad-hoc committee on elections law is today submitting its report to the House following public consultations.

The committee was tasked to collect public views on the Elections Bill which came up for first reading on May 22. The formation of the committee followed concerns by lawmakers that the Bill which had been approved May 2 by the Cabinet fell short of public input.

The committee was formed two months later on July 22. Critical from the report will be the electoral model to be used in parliamentary and presidential elections. According to committee member Abdirizak Mohamed, the committee held 64 meetings with Federal Member States, Civil Society Organisations and political parties among other stakeholders.

Somalia has in previous elections used a clan model dubbed 4.5 which distributes power and political representation based on clan formula. The four major clans are allocated 61 seats at the Lower House while the remainder, 0.5 get the balance-31 seats.