Somalia Deputy Prime minister announces Hashi’s contender for the senate seat

Deputy Prime Minister Mahdi Guled has announced that a candidate to contest with outgoing senate speaker Abdi Hashi had been identified following sharp criticism by politicians from Somaliland.

The outgoing senate speaker Abdi Hashi will not be standing alone in the ballot for a senate seat after all following the selection of a candidate to contest with him.

Following protests from Somaliland lawmakers in Mogadishu, Deputy Prime Minister Mahdi Guled announced that Sai’d Omar Hussein will be contesting for the first senate seat with Hashi, Guled said, noting the decision to get a contender followed ‘consultations with elders.’

The announcement last week that Hashi will go unchallenged sparked sharp criticism from Somaliland politicians among them presidential candidate Fawzia Haji who said the process fell short of a democratic exercise.

“While we welcome the agreement between the two sides of the Somaliland politicians, we hope that they would hold free and fair elections, based on fair competition and fair elections,” the Somaliland politicians said in a joint statement.