Pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls con­tin­ued with their cam­paign speeches to Par­lia­ment in Mo­gadishu to­day, the sec­ond of three days of speeches.

Seven of the Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates de­liv­ered their ad­dress to mem­bers of both Houses of Par­lia­ment in a bid to sway po­ten­tial vot­ers.

The can­di­dates were Dr. Ab­d­i­nasir Ab­dulle Ahmed, Ab­di­rah­man Abdi Shakur, Ab­di­rah­man Mo­hamed Fa­role, Ab­dul­lahi Ahmed Ali Gees aka Adow Ali Gees, Ab­dul­lahi El­moge Hirsi, Ab­duqadir Os­oble Ali, and Ali Ha­jji Warsame.

The main themes of the elec­tion speeches were job cre­ation, strength­en­ing the se­cu­rity sec­tor and re­build­ing So­ma­li­a’s crum­bling in­fra­struc­ture.

Here are some of the note­wor­thy mes­sages from each of the can­di­dates:

Dr. Ab­d­i­nasir Ab­dulle Ahmed

Dr. Ab­dulle spoke at length about re­de­vel­op­ment and state build­ing. He promised to re­build ne­glected in­sti­tu­tions like the ju­di­ciary and so­cial ser­vices.

He also spoke of form­ing a spe­cial rec­on­cil­i­a­tion coun­cil to in­ves­ti­gate some of the atroc­i­ties that have hap­pened dur­ing So­ma­li­a’s dark­est years. He also said he would in­vite So­ma­liland to the table for mean­ing­ful di­a­logue.

Dr. Ab­di­rah­man Abdi Shakur

Dr. Ab­di­rah­man Abdi Shakur be­gan by lament­ing that he is sad­dened by the ab­sence of fe­male con­tenders among the Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. He said he wel­comed the re­cent ICJ de­ci­sion to hear So­ma­li­a’s case against Kenya in its Mar­itime Dis­pute. He pointed at the Mar­itime case as ev­i­dence that So­ma­li­a’s re­gional neigh­bours do not re­spect its sov­er­eignty.

His plan in­volves em­pha­siz­ing party pol­i­tics in­stead of clan pol­i­tics, say­ing trib­al­ism is the lead­ing cause of po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sion among So­ma­lis, which Al Shabaab ex­ploits. He added that the in­sur­gency group killed 19 MP’s.

Ab­di­rah­man Mo­hamed Fa­role

The for­mer Pres­i­dent of Punt­land said his num­ber one pri­or­ity is se­cu­rity. Sec­ond is em­pow­er­ing the So­mali sol­diers, and third is fight­ing cor­rup­tion within the gov­ern­ment.

“If we don’t have se­cu­rity, it will be dif­fi­cult for any gov­ern­ment to func­tion.”

He said So­ma­lia cur­rently has too many MP’s and if he were elected, he would work to re­duce it.

Ab­dul­lahi Ahmed Ali Gees (Adow Ali Gees)

Mr. Ali Gees said he in­tends on work­ing with So­ma­liland to re­store the unity of So­ma­lia.

He also stated that he would fo­cus on strength­en­ing the na­tional cur­rency

Ab­dul­lahi El­moge Hirsi

Mr. Hirsi said his ad­min­is­tra­tion would pri­or­i­tize se­cu­rity and the So­mali army. He be­lieves So­ma­lia needs a leader that will stand be­hind the armed forces as it bat­tles Al Shabaab.

He vowed to dis­arm all pri­vate com­pa­nies and reg­u­late se­cu­rity.

He also said that he would in­vite fringe groups to the fold such as Ahlu Sunna and open up a di­a­logue with So­ma­liland.

Ab­duqadir Os­oble Ali

Mr. Ali said that good gov­er­nance would be the pil­lar of his ad­min­is­tra­tion. He promised a gov­ern­ment en­dorsed job fair, fa­cil­i­tat­ing both gov­ern­ment and pri­vate in­vest­ment in So­ma­lia as well as im­ple­ment­ing a com­pre­hen­sive tax code.

Ali Haji Warsame

Mr. Warsame said he too would fo­cus on se­cu­rity. He promised that he would draft a plan that would fos­ter a smooth and peace­ful exit strat­egy for AMI­SOM.

So­ma­li­a’s bi-cam­eral Par­lia­ment will choose be­tween 24 can­di­dates to elect the na­tion’s next Pres­i­dent.