Wednesday July 15, 2020
Dhusamareb (HOL) - Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire met with Hirshabelle, Southwest and Jubbaland regional state leaders in Dhusamareb on Wednesday.
Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni travelled back to Garowe early Wednesday morning to attend the state funerals for former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Abshir Farah and former Puntland President Ahmed Abdi Hashi.
The meeting comes on the heels of President Farmajo's anticipated arrival to Dhusamareb to join the consultative talks. Sources within the Southwest State regional government have shared with HOL that the President is expected to join the negotiations. Farmajo was in Mogadishu on Tuesday where he joined other East African leaders for a virtual IGAD assembly session where they discussed the South Sudan process.
Farmajo's arrival will mark the first time the FMS leaders and Somalia's Federal Government met since June 2018 in Baidoa. Most observers had assumed the FMS consultative meeting in Dhusamareb over the weekend was going to be a prelude to a National Security Council meeting with the federal government in Mogadishu.
The main item on the agenda will be a politically negotiated electoral model for the upcoming federal elections.
FMS leaders have already ruled out the possibility of one-person-one-vote (1PV) elections to be held on time. They have called for an alternative electoral model to be implemented before the government's mandate expires. Leaders may opt for a more elaborate version of the indirect electoral model that was used to elect President Farmajo in 2017. In the last election, 14,025 delegates made up of elders and prominent regional figures chose the 275 members of parliament and 54 senators, who in turn cast their vote in a secret ballot for the Presidency.
The entire process has been heavily criticised as corrupt as vast sums of money were said to of exchanged hands and rival presidential candidates accusing one another of buying MPs.
Parliament tern will end on December 27th, while the President's mandate expires on February 8th, 2021.
Last week, the Prime Minister and President both backed a cabinet resolution to have timely elections as stipulated by the constitution.
The NIEC, Somalia's electoral commission ruled out the possibility of having 1PV votes in 2020, saying that it March 2021 would be the earliest they could hold some form of an election.