Sunday January 26, 2025

Baidoa (HOL) – A delegation from Somalia’s National Electoral Commission and Boundaries arrived in Baidoa on Sunday to accelerate preparations for the country’s transition to a one-person, one-vote electoral system. 

Yusuf Abdulqadir Mohamed, an electoral commission member, stated that the visit was to reopen the commission’s Baidoa office, which had been inactive for some time. 

“We arrived in Baidoa to reopen the office of the Electoral Commission here, which has not been used for a while, and to begin the one-person, one-vote election process,” Mohamed told reporters. 

The move comes as Somalia’s National Electoral Commission and Boundaries recently announced the start of registration for political organizations in anticipation of the long-awaited direct elections. 

The commission has committed to increasing the number of polling stations across the country from 300, identified by the previous commission, to 800. Officials are set to begin marking the locations of these additional polling stations next week, a step seen as critical to ensuring participation in the electoral process.