Mogadishu Residents Rally for Greater Political Representation

by Abdisalam Boqore

Huge demonstrations held in Mogadishu earlier today, in support of a proposed quota of representatives in Somalia’s upper house of parliament for Banadir province.

All main roads in the capital city of Somalia were blocked by a huge number of demonstrators earlier today including the famous Maka Al mukarama high-way at the heart of the city.

Hundreds of people from almost all the districts of Mogadishu city have attended these local government-organized demonstrations in the capital, in support of a quota of 7 parliamentarians for Mogadishu’s Banaadir region in the upper house of the Somali parliament.

In the meantime, huge numbers of Somali police officers were deployed in the vicinity to tighten the security.  The demonstrators were marching and chanting slogans demanding political representation in the Upper-house of the Parliament and a role in the country’s political power sharing system.

Somalia has a parliament that consists of lower and upper houses. The lower house is based on representation of clans through the country’s clan-based power-sharing political system, but the upper-house has been based on federal member states’ representation.

Somalia’s Provisional Constitution does not give Mogadishu a status of a federal member state.

It reads: “The capital city of the Federal Republic of Somalia is Mogadishu. The status of the capital city of Somalia shall be determined in the constitutional review process, and the two houses of the Somali Federal Parliament shall enact a special law with regards to this issue.”

Nevertheless, the Regional officials and community leaders who attended the rally called for the country’s president and parliament to help the capital get political representation and address the grievances of its residents.