Somalia - April 2025

On 13 April, Somalia launched a national voter registration campaign in Mogadishu, marking a key step toward the country’s first one-person, one-vote elections since 1967. The campaign is aimed at preparing for local elections scheduled for late June 2025 and represents a shift away from the country’s long-standing clan-based voting system. In 2023, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud pledged to transition Somalia to universal suffrage. Since then, the cabinet has endorsed legislation to support direct presidential elections by 2026. However, opposition leaders, including former presidents Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, have rejected the process as unilateral and suggested they may organise a parallel vote.

Update: On 25 December, district council elections proceeded peacefully in Mogadishu, marking Somalia’s first multi-party direct elections in the capital in over five decades and a milestone in the federal government’s push toward one-person, one-vote elections. Turnout was low at around 25 per cent, and the opposition National Salvation Forum rejected the poll as lacking credible conditions, leaving the broader electoral standoff unresolved ahead of further district, state and national elections due by May 2026.

Sources: Hiiran, The East African, News Central, Africa News, Reuters, International IDEA, International Crisis Group