The United Na­tions, African Union, Eu­ro­pean Union, In­ter-Gov­ern­men­tal Au­thor­ity on De­vel­op­ment, Bel­gium, Italy, the Nether­lands, Swe­den, the United King­dom and the United States are gravely con­cerned over a num­ber of de­ci­sions an­nounced by the Na­tional Lead­er­ship Fo­rum (NLF) in its com­mu­niqué dated 24 De­cem­ber 2016.

To­day’s in­au­gu­ra­tion of the Fed­eral Par­lia­ment rep­re­sents a step for­ward in the elec­toral process. How­ever, in­ter­na­tional part­ners wish to see the elec­toral process go for­ward with the ex­ist­ing 54 seats in the Up­per House as stip­u­lated un­der So­ma­li­a’s Pro­vi­sional Con­sti­tu­tion. Any fur­ther ex­pan­sion of the Up­per House should only be con­tem­plated af­ter the pres­i­den­tial vote has been held in the new fed­eral par­lia­ment and im­ple­mented through a proper con­sti­tu­tional process.

In­ter­na­tional part­ners ac­knowl­edge the NLF’s com­mu­niqué of 26 De­cem­ber 2016 that des­ig­nates five seats in the House of the Peo­ple for un­der­go­ing a fresh round of vot­ing. But this fails to ad­dress a num­ber of other egre­gious cases of abuse of the elec­toral process, in­clud­ing seats re­served for women can­di­dates only that were ul­ti­mately taken by male can­di­dates.

The NLF’s de­ci­sion to re­voke all dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tions of can­di­dates made by the coun­try’s elec­toral bod­ies for al­legedly com­mit­ting abuses and mal­prac­tices rep­re­sents a blan­ket amnesty for some of the most bla­tant ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties wit­nessed dur­ing this elec­toral process. It also con­tra­venes the Fed­eral Gov­ern­men­t’s solemn com­mit­ment to re­spect the rule of law.

If these can­di­dates are al­lowed to take their seats in So­ma­li­a’s tenth par­lia­ment, it will bring into ques­tion the NLF’s ex­pressed com­mit­ment to the prin­ci­ples of ac­count­abil­ity and cred­i­bil­ity that un­der­pin the en­tire process. It will also un­der­mine the elec­toral code of con­duct signed by all par­lia­men­tary can­di­dates in the spirit of lev­el­ing the play­ing field and en­sur­ing the de­liv­ery of a cred­i­ble process.

In­ter­na­tional part­ners strongly be­lieve that elec­tions must be re-run for seats where the vot­ing out­comes were clearly dis­torted by vi­o­lence, cor­rup­tion, in­tim­i­da­tion, the unau­tho­rized sub­sti­tu­tion of elec­toral col­lege del­e­gates and a fail­ure to set aside one of every three seats for ex­clu­sively fe­male can­di­dates.

In­ter­na­tional part­ners call on the fed­eral par­lia­ment to is­sue as soon as pos­si­ble a time­line for the com­ple­tion of the process in or­der to elect the Speak­ers and Deputy Speak­ers of the new fed­eral par­lia­ment and the Fed­eral Pres­i­dent. This time­line should be strictly en­forced to avoid yet an­other post­pone­ment in an elec­toral process that was sup­posed to have fin­ished ear­lier this year. There is a par­tic­u­lar need to con­clude the process swiftly in light of the UN Se­cu­rity Coun­cil’s up­com­ing meet­ing on So­ma­lia that is sched­uled for 19 Jan­u­ary 2017.

In­ter­na­tional part­ners be­lieve that the in­tegrity of the 2016 elec­toral process hangs in the bal­ance. More de­lays and a fail­ure to hold ac­count­able those par­ties who have com­mit­ted se­ri­ous abuses and mal­prac­tices will com­pro­mise the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­ni­ty’s abil­ity and will­ing­ness to en­gage with So­ma­li­a’s next fed­eral gov­ern­ment.