Residents of Somalia’s capital are voting in local council elections, the first time in more than 50 years that voters directly choose their representatives, a milestone overshadowed by an opposition boycott.
Polling stations across Mogadishu opened at 6am local time (3pm Japan time) on Thursday, with early lines forming as Somalis lined up to take part in what President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud called “a new chapter in the country’s history.”
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Approximately 500,000 people have registered to vote for 390 district council seats, and approximately 1,605 candidates are contesting at 523 polling stations in the metropolitan area.
Authorities deployed nearly 10,000 police officers and imposed a citywide lockdown, restricting vehicular and pedestrian movement and suspending flights to the city’s main airport.
Security in Somalia’s capital has improved this year, but the government continues to battle al-Qaeda-linked militant group al-Shabaab, which carried out a major attack in October.
Information Minister Daoud Aweis described the elections as a “resurgence of democratic practices” after decades without holding them, and Electoral Commission Chairman Abdikarim Ahmed Hassan assured voters that security measures were “100 percent” reliable.
Somalia’s last direct elections were in 1969, months before an October military coup that kept civilians out of power for the next 30 years.
After years of civil war that ousted military leader Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, the country adopted an unpopular clan-based indirect electoral system in 2004. Clan representatives elect politicians, and politicians elect the president. The process has historically been highly contested among candidates for the top job.
Incumbent President Mohamud, who twice came to power through this system, has announced a move to universal suffrage at local, federal and presidential levels in 2023.
The government secured parliamentary approval for constitutional reforms and established a National Election Commission to oversee the constitutional transition, a move that galvanized key opposition parties, including two former presidents.
An agreement reached in October 2024 between federal and local leaders collapsed amid fierce opposition, complicating future presidential polls.
“Rather a symbolic vote.”
Prominent opposition figures publicly criticized Mogadishu’s vote and the government’s overall policy, accusing it of excluding Mogadishu from the electoral process.
Sharif Sheikh Ahmed described the process as “unfortunate” and attacked what he called an “exclusionary voter registration process” that lacked legitimacy. Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, known as Farmajo, claimed the process “opens the door to dangers that threaten the security of the country.”
Two important federal states, Puntland in the north and Jubaland, which borders Kenya, rejected this framework outright.
Key opposition figures, including the leaders of these federal states, met in the port city of Kismayo earlier this month and issued a communiqué threatening to hold their own national elections.
They firmly rejected Thursday’s vote as premature and unfair, although they said they were willing to negotiate a “transparent and consensual electoral process.”
Mahad Wasuge, executive director of the Mogadishu-based think tank Somalia Public Agenda, told Al Jazeera that the government is spending a lot of political money on holding direct elections and that the stakes are low, meaning local opinion polls will yield “easy wins or easy exits.”
He added that the government would not have faced any real threat because it exercises significant control over the political situation in Mogadishu.
But he said: “This vote is not supported by Somalia’s international partners and the main opposition parties are boycotting the vote, which is a red flag.” He characterized it as a “rather symbolic vote.”
The elections come as Somalia faces increasing security challenges in areas near the capital.
Al-Shabaab, an armed group seeking to overthrow the government, launched a major offensive in February 2025, reversing the government’s territorial gains. U.N. experts recently told the U.N. Security Council that the group’s ability to carry out large-scale attacks “remains undiminished.”
The UN Security Council this week renewed the mandate of the UN-backed African Union peacekeeping mission, which faces significant funding shortfalls that could threaten its effectiveness and continuity.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeff Bartos, Somalia’s most important security partner, expressed deep concern about the deteriorating security situation and warned that the U.S. government was no longer prepared to continue funding the mission.
The Trump administration has also recalled the ambassador in Mogadishu as part of a broader withdrawal of U.S. diplomats from Africa, a move widely seen as signaling a decline in U.S. interests in Somalia.
