Following our talks with government officials on solving differences about the necessary arrangements for the coming local municipality council’s elections, the government side has not showed any flexibility to compromise on the disputed issues. The main disagreements were the inevitability of distributing municipal ID cards to voters after registering their profiles information and the timing of the first local elections. Those conditions which materialized articles III and IV in the current local council’s election law that was passed last year actually formed an acceptable basis for holding fair and free elections in Puntland.

However, with government stiffness, we proposed to reach comprise on the wrangled issues as per the following:

• To accomplish distributing of ID cards only to voters residing in urban locations while screening of rural electors could be done through traditional methods.
• To hold local municipality elections in August this year instead of May in order to get enough time for ID distribution and registration at least local residents in towns.

But to our surprise, the government has totally ignored our concern and instead pushed for the removal of the argued articles from the current law by the parliament through any means.

Unfortunately, after the elimination of those paragraphs yesterday in a hasty session by the unpopular legislative body, we believe that a transparent election is impossible to occur in Puntland and hence UDAD decided that it will not take part in the upcoming municipal elections unless the government restores back the abolished paragraphs from the local elections law and create trust among the two sides.

Furthermore, pursuing above, we call that:

1. The government of Puntland must show flexibility on the disputed paragraphs in the law and draw back from its current stance in order of reaching mutual understanding and compromise with the true opposition political associations.
2. The people of Puntland refrain to participate in the upcoming election which is undoubtedly doomed to fail and forge their wishes.
3.  The international community must abstain to endorse, fund or accept election processes that are not transparent and inclusive.
4.  Representatives from all groups of the society such as traditional elders, religious scholars, intellectuals, women, youth and others come together in a broad congress and speak one voice to condemn government position and salvage their country.
5.  We condemn the suppression of local and international media outlets, particularly the shutting down of the transmissions of Daljir, One Nation and Voice of Peace Radios in Puntland yesterday. We ask the government to pull back its decision immediately and allow airing programs of those radios freely, and without any delay.

THE END

SAID FARAH

CHAIRMAN, UDAD POLITICAL ASSOCIATION