By Francis Otucu
On Sunday May 15, 2022 Somalia’s parliament reelected former President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud for the top job.
In a joint session of the two houses of the parliament, the Upper House and Lower House, 327 lawmakers cast ballots for 36 presidential candidates in three rounds of voting.
Outgoing President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo and his immediate predecessor, Mohamud, competed in the final round of voting, needing a simple majority to win. It was a rematch of the 2017 election when Farmaajo beat Mohamud to become president.
Out of 327 parliamentarians who voted in the final round, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud got 214 (votes), while President Farmaajo got 110, three votes were spoiled.
But maybe the results may be very unpopular. As a 90’s kid, here is what caught my attention:
“Thanks to Allah for allowing us to complete our election tonight. I thank those who voted for me and those who voted against me. I want to welcome my brother, the new president. Congratulations,” Farmaajo is quoted by VOA news to have said.
Taken literally, Farmaajo’s concession statement is not only a rarity but landmark phenomenon on our continent.
It is not very common for an outgoing President to concede defeat in an African country. The normal we are used to is that incumbents tend to make sure they never lose an election.
It doesn't even matter how they get declared winner: violence, voter bribery, brutality against opposition political forces and use of the military and the police to clamp down on popular voices within or outside the government are the usual occurrences.
These cut across in many of these countries. But to note that Farmaajo, an outgoing President in a country known to be unstable and with all the capacity to create a militia or at least fund one chose to hand over power peacefully means a lot! It shows that unlike popular belief, Somalia must be a very democratic country.
The irony though is that many ‘stable’ and ‘democratic’ countries are in Somalia, on account of peace keeping. Although they may not necessarily be election observers, they cannot ignore the feat achieved on the Somalian electoral front. .
Sunday May 15, 2022 means Somalia is on the right path to self-sustainability and its gesture now worth emulating.
So, in essence, Sunday’s event presents an opportunity for an exchange programme of sorts.
For now, the peacekeepers may learn Somalia’s art of free and fair, peaceful elections amidst the insecurity challenge while. But sadly, there’s also the reality that the peacekeepers “may look and look, yet not see or even listen and listen, yet not understand”?
The writer is a student of Journalism and Communication at Makerere University.