November 2019

Somalia is slowly emerging from decades of state failure, fragility and protracted fight against the insurgency Islamist Alshabaab. A fixed term parliament, a flourishing tradition of indirect elections and peaceful transfer of power in every four years have prevailed in the country for the last 15 years. Despite the successive peaceful change of governments, progress towards institutionalising this emerging democracy and establishing viable electoral system has been very slow mainly due to lack of political commitment and agreement between the factious political leaders of the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) and the Federal Member States (FMS) compounded by security, institutional and technical constraints.