DHUSAMAREB, SOMALIA – Somalia’s electoral commission has excluded Towfiiq from the approved list for the Galmudug rerun that the organisation won in the Supreme Court. The commission announced on Sunday 13 September that submissions had closed and named twelve organisations for the 30 September vote. Its spokesman said two days later that Towfiiq had filed no formal application. Towfiiq says the commission holds its candidate lists for the state assembly and local councils, gave it no written notice and retaliated over the case that voided the first result. No application receipt, register or exclusion decision has been published. The commission whose election was annulled now controls the documents that could settle whether the successful litigant applied to contest the remedy.
Towfiiq Took the First Election to Court
Galmudug voted on 30 July for an 89-seat state assembly and 243 local council positions across eleven districts. The electoral commission awarded the Justice and Solidarity Party of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud 63 assembly seats and Towfiiq twelve. In the local count, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s party received 135,247 of 193,451 valid votes against 26,003 for Towfiiq, producing the landslide that gave Villa Somalia a state on schedule. Towfiiq rejected the returns, published a competing tally and sought an independent examination of station records. Its petition challenged both tiers of the election, including the commission’s deadlines, the records made available to parties and its treatment of party witnesses.
A five-judge electoral division heard the challenge from 17 to 19 August. Chief Justice Bashe Yusuf Ahmed delivered the judgment on 24 August, finding that the election had breached the constitutional requirements of freedom, fairness and impartiality and that the violations affected the result. The judges said the breaches damaged the transparency and integrity of the process. Their order annulled the assembly and council elections, required a fresh vote under the Constitution and electoral law, and kept existing institutions in office until lawfully elected replacements could take over. Towfiiq secured the first judicial annulment issued against the commission’s direct-election programme.
The Supreme Court rejected the commission’s procedural defence, holding that party members were competent witnesses and that a polling-day complaint was no condition for challenging an unlawful result. It also held that the commission could not alter a statutory deadline through internal regulations. The judgment erased an election Villa Somalia had already won, then returned the rerun to the same electoral authority. Judges appointed no independent supervisor, ordered no external observation and named no body responsible for enforcing the standards they had set. Towfiiq now enters the replacement process dependent on the respondent it defeated for recognition as a contestant.
Two Accounts of the Missing Application
On 13 September, the commission announced that candidate submissions had closed and listed twelve organisations authorised to contest, with Towfiiq absent from the approved list. The announcement supplied the names and symbols of admitted organisations and gave no reason for the omission. Spokesman Abdifatah Faisal Hussein said on 15 September that Towfiiq never submitted a formal application expressing its intention to join the rerun, describing the exclusion as an ordinary application of procedures and requirements. The commission has published neither the application register nor a notice specifying what parties already registered for the annulled election had to file again.
Towfiiq says it was ready to participate and that the commission possesses its candidate lists for both elected bodies. The organisation says it received no written exclusion decision and learned the outcome on social media. Sheikh Shaakir called the omission retaliation for the court challenge, asked President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to intervene and urged supporters to prepare peaceful meetings and demonstrations. An application receipt, the commission’s register and the candidate lists would resolve most of the dispute. None has entered the public record, and the commission has published no document showing when applications opened, what fresh filing was required or how registered organisations were notified.
Issued on 31 August, the rerun calendar fixes polling for 30 September, with polling centres marked on 10 September, candidate lists published on 20 September, party representatives submitted on 22 September and accreditation completed on 26 September. The Supreme Court set out electoral-law requirements that include ninety days’ notice of polling, candidate lists lodged 120 working days before the vote and a final voter register supplied thirty days ahead. The commission compressed the rerun into one month, giving registered organisations a calendar far shorter than the court’s statutory benchmarks. Towfiiq was excluded under a timetable in which submissions closed seventeen days before polling and seven days before publication of the final candidate lists.
The Commission Keeps the Same Discretion
After the judgment, the electoral commission said it accepted the decision and invoked the supremacy of law. It remained the sole organiser of the remedy after serving as organiser and respondent in the case. Commission officials control the timetable, application register, candidate lists, polling personnel, station returns and final declaration. The Supreme Court described the legal standards but attached no independent machinery to enforce them. No independent supervisor has been appointed for the Galmudug rerun scheduled on 30 September. Towfiiq’s exclusion places the first consequential decision of the rerun, admission to the contest, inside the same authority whose deadlines, records and handling of witnesses led judges to void the first ballot.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s party remains on the list after the Supreme Court annulled the 63 seats awarded to it in July. Towfiiq has asked President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to intervene, directing its appeal to the leader of the organisation that benefits from its absence. Hirshabelle is scheduled to elect councils and an assembly on the same day as the Galmudug rerun, after the ruling party gave President Ali Gudlawe its only card for the state presidency. Armed Macawisley fighters have reportedly occupied registration centres in Beledweyne while the commission continues the calendar. Both elections will be administered by the authority whose Galmudug result the Supreme Court has already rejected.
Banadir, South West, Galmudug and Hirshabelle have placed direct elections under one commission within ten months, and each contest has strengthened the federal ruling party or advanced a presidency arranged in Mogadishu. In Hirshabelle, the registration exercise opened while its presidency was being settled elsewhere. In Galmudug, the rerun is proceeding without the organisation whose petition established why it was required. Towfiiq can return to court or mobilise the peaceful pressure it has announced, but the 30 September ballot will be built from the candidate list already controlled by the commission it defeated.
