WASH­ING­TON — Elec­tion ob­servers in So­ma­lia say cor­rup­tion is run­ning ram­pant ahead of Wednes­day’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, with can­di­dates giv­ing gifts and large sums of cash to law­mak­ers to se­cure their votes.

Twenty-three can­di­dates are chal­leng­ing in­cum­bent Has­san Sheikh Mo­hamud, who is seek­ing a sec­ond four-year term as leader of the Horn of Africa na­tion. The pres­i­dent will be elected by mem­bers of the par­lia­ment, who were elected last year.

Warn­ing from of­fi­cial

Speak­ing to re­porters Mon­day, the chair­man of an in­de­pen­dent anti-cor­rup­tion com­mit­tee threat­ened to ex­pose those who are of­fer­ing and ac­cept­ing bribes.

“We know what is go­ing on in the city and we want to make sure that things hap­pen in a trans­par­ent and le­gal way,” said Abdi Is­mail Samatar.

“There is no way we can im­me­di­ately pre­vent if a law­maker makes deals un­der the table, but we make sure that the vot­ing process is free and fair, and later if we find out any cor­rup­tion and bribery in­volve­ment, we will make it pub­lic,” he said.

The com­mit­tee, which has no polic­ing au­thor­ity, was es­tab­lished by par­lia­ment to over­see the elec­tion and re­port any mal­prac­tices and ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.

Elec­tion moved to air­port

The elec­tion has been de­layed sev­eral times, and or­ga­niz­ers de­cided last week to change the venue af­ter 18 can­di­dates ex­pressed con­cerns about se­cu­rity at the orig­i­nal lo­ca­tion, the Mo­gadishu po­lice acad­emy. The can­di­dates spoke out af­ter the com­man­der of the po­lice re­port­edly en­dorsed Pres­i­dent Mo­hamud for re-elec­tion.

Now, mem­bers of the up­per and lower houses of par­lia­ment will gather in­side the heav­ily-for­ti­fied Aden Ab­dulle In­ter­na­tional Air­port.

But few ex­pect the change in venue to cause a change in tac­tics.

Heikal Kenneded, a So­mali scholar and writer who lives in Vir­ginia, said he saw elec­tion play­ers ex­chang­ing cash dur­ing a trip to Mo­gadishu last week, though he would not spec­ify who was in­volved in the deal.

“I def­i­nitely saw with my own eyes the vi­cious po­lit­i­cal cor­rup­tion and wheel­ing and deal­ing of cor­rupted of­fi­cials among the cur­rent can­di­dates,” he told VOA’s So­mali ser­vice Mon­day.

Gov­ern­ment jobs have a price

Po­lit­i­cal in­sid­ers, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymity, said can­di­dates have be­gun re­im­burs­ing would-be sup­port­ers for their ex­penses, in­clud­ing air­fare, ho­tel bills and meals. In ad­di­tion, of­fi­cials say bribes of be­tween $1,000 and $10,000 have been paid.

Ac­cord­ing to a mem­ber of par­lia­ment, one can­di­date has spent $1.3 mil­lion in an ef­fort to get elected.

Can­di­dates are also of­fer­ing po­si­tions in the gov­ern­ment. “The ma­jor can­di­dates have al­ready be­gan strik­ing po­lit­i­cal deals with law­mak­ers to cor­rupt them, vote for them,” one law­maker told VOA.

“The in­flu­en­tial and promi­nent law­mak­ers have al­ready se­cured of­fers of a fu­ture role in the com­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion in ex­change for votes if their card wins,” an­other law­maker said.

Fad­umo Dayib was plan­ning to be­come the first woman in So­ma­li­a’s male-dom­i­nated po­lit­i­cal cul­ture to make a run for pres­i­dent. But af­ter an ac­tive so­cial me­dia cam­paign, she did not reg­is­ter for the con­test, cit­ing a high level of cor­rup­tion.

“I am not run­ning be­cause of the shock­ing level of cor­rup­tion, and I don’t want to be part of some­thing that is il­le­git­i­mate,” Dayib said in a brief mes­sage posted on her so­cial me­dia plat­forms.

Se­cu­rity tight­ened

So­ma­lia has a long­stand­ing rep­u­ta­tion for cor­rup­tion and weak gov­ern­ment. No gov­ern­ment has been able to as­sert much au­thor­ity out­side Mo­gadishu since the regime of dic­ta­tor Mo­hamed Siad Barre fell in 1991.

The sit­u­a­tion has wors­ened pe­ri­odic food short­ages caused by drought, en­abled mil­i­tant group al-Shabab to seize chunks of ter­ri­tory and for sev­eral years, al­lowed pi­rates to freely hi­jack ships off the So­mali coast for ran­som.

Al-Shabab car­ries out pe­ri­odic sui­cide bomb­ings in Mo­gadishu, mainly aimed at the ho­tels where law­mak­ers, diplo­mats and busi­ness­men tend to meet. So se­cu­rity has been stepped up in most parts of the city, and VOA re­porters say gov­ern­ment forces are pa­trolling the streets to pre­vent pos­si­ble at­tacks.

Streets to be shut down dur­ing elec­tion

The cur­rent mayor of Mo­gadishu, Hus­sein Yusuf Ji­male, said most of the city’s pub­lic and ve­hic­u­lar move­ments will shut down dur­ing the elec­tion.

“For two days, all the streets of the city will be shut down, start­ing from 6 p.m. Mon­day, all pub­lic trans­porta­tion in the city will be sus­pended, schools will be shut down, and we ask peo­ple to re­main in their houses,” Yusuf told re­porters on Sun­day.

Res­i­dents said se­cu­rity forces were de­ployed overnight in all streets lead­ing to the air­port from the rest of the city.

Two days of de­bates

Ahead of the vote, par­lia­ment is hold­ing pres­i­den­tial de­bates on Mon­day and Tues­day, in which can­di­dates are tout­ing their plans to im­prove se­cu­rity, fight ter­ror­ism and im­ple­ment good gov­er­nance.
Among the pres­i­den­t’s main chal­lengers are his prime min­is­ter, Omar Ab­durashid Ali Shar­marke; for­mer pres­i­dent Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed; and for­mer prime min­is­ter, Mo­hamed Ab­dul­lahi, a dual U.S.-So­mali na­tional bet­ter known as Far­majo. Other can­di­dates in­clude for­mer min­is­ters, for­mer Mo­gadishu mayor, busi­ness­men, and civil so­ci­ety ac­tivists.

In a speech to law­mak­ers Thurs­day, Mo­hamud vowed to re­build the army to take over the se­cu­rity of the coun­try within two years, and to pre­pare for elec­tions by pop­u­lar vote in 2020.