2021 Somaliland parliamentary election

2021 Somaliland parliamentary election
← 2005 31 May 2021 2025 →
All 82 seats in the House of Representatives
42 seats needed for a majority
Registered1,065,847
Turnout65.3%[1]
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi Muse Bihi Abdi Faysal Ali Warabe
Party Waddani Kulmiye UCID
Leader since 2012 2010 2001
Last election – 34.06%, 28 seats 26.93%, 21 seats
Seats won 31 30 21
Seat change New Increase 2 Steady
Popular vote 258,658 256,524 179,735
Percentage 37.22% 36.91% 25.86%
Swing New Increase2.85pp Decrease1.07pp
Map of the electoral results, showing the party with the highest number of seats by region
Speaker before election

Bashe Mohamed Farah
Kulmiye

Speaker

Abdirisak Khalif
Waddani

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Parliamentary elections were held in Somaliland on 31 May 2021, alongside local district elections.[2] The election was Somaliland's first parliamentary election since 2005, and politicians pointed to the election as evidence of its political stability.[3] Three parties – the populist Somaliland National Party (Waddani), the centre-left Justice and Welfare Party (UCID), and the ruling party, the liberal Kulmiye Peace, Unity, and Development Party – put forward 246 candidates who competed for 82 seats in the House of Representatives.[3][4] More than one million people, out of about four million residents total, registered to vote.[3] On 6 June, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) announced that Waddani had received a plurality of seats with 31; Kulmiye received 30, and UCID received 21.[5] As no party had received an outright majority, Waddani and UCID announced they would form a political alliance.[5]

The election was tentatively scheduled and postponed numerous times since the last parliamentary election in 2005.[6] The vote was scheduled for March and then August 2019 before the NEC declared it could not be held that year.[7] After pressure from all three parties in 2020, the NEC agreed to hold an election in May 2021.

Preceding the election, many local politicians expressed hope that it may help Somaliland be recognized as a nation by more members of the international community.[8] President Muse Bihi Abdi and opposition leader Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi called for voters to remain peaceful at the polls. The number of polling stations increased by 61 percent from the 2017 presidential election, and 103 international observers came to monitor the polls and ensure election security.

  1. ^ "Analysing the Somaliland's Combined Election Results". Archived from the original on 23 October 2021. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  2. ^ "Somaliland: Major Election Stakeholders Concur on May 2021 Polls". Somaliland Sun. 26 August 2020. Archived from the original on 3 June 2021. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  3. ^ a b c "Somaliland holds first parliamentary vote since 2005". Reuters. 31 May 2021. Archived from the original on 6 June 2021. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference AfricaElects was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b "Somaliland opposition win majority in first parliamentary vote since 2005". Reuters. 6 June 2021. Archived from the original on 7 June 2021. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  6. ^ Walls, Michael; Pegg, Scott (10 November 2017). "Somaliland votes next week. Its biggest challenges come after the election". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on 28 April 2020. Retrieved 14 February 2021.
  7. ^ "Parliamentary election may be delayed more than a year in Somaliland". Somaliland Standard. 15 August 2019. Archived from the original on 16 August 2019. Retrieved 16 August 2019.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference BBC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).