Parliament’s seats allocation remains the same, says Kulmiye official

Hargeisa, July 31 (Somaliland.com):- Having reached an agreement on the need to constitute a new electoral body for parliamentary election in Somaliland, the question of what number of seats should be allocated to each region comes to the fore. This appears to be another speed bump for the electoral process.

Speaking at a news conference held today in Hargeisa, the secretary of the central council of Kulmiye party, Mr Mustafe Mohamed Yonis, addressed the issue head-on. He announced that Kulmiye supports maintaining the current number of seats for each of the regions.

Mr Mustafe also doused speculations that they may be a delay in the electoral proceedings as a result of the issue of what formula to be adopted in the allocation of parliament’s seats.

He argued that the current formula is based on the 1960 population census which is the last accurate census taken in the country. He also pointed out that until another census is completed, the formula need not be changed. In his words:

The last parliamentary election was held by president Dahir Riyale Kahin who is a great Somaliland patriot,  and the formula he used to allocate the seats is well known. The composition of this parliament is based on the 1960 allocation formula. The last accurate census was taken in 1960. That’s how the allocation is framed. And that is what the 82 members of the parliament is based on. We haven’t had another accurate census yet.

The secretary of Kulmiye’s Central Council ruled out the idea of using the polling data of the latest presidential election as the framework for distributing seats in the parliament among regions. He noted that voters turnout varied considerably among the regions, and would, therefore, be misleading.

The remarks of Kulmiye’s secretary comes days after the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives Mr Ahmed-Yasin Sh. Ali Ayanle called for a just political power distribution among the regions and asked that it should be reflected in parliament representations of each region. The deputy speaker is from Awdal region where a vocal movement is currently making demands for an increase in parliament seats allotted to the region