Somaliland elections rocked by ballot fraud    


September 19 2005 at 10:06AM

Nairobi - The electoral panel in the Somali breakaway region of Somaliland said Monday some candidates in the this month's parliamentary polls had printed fake ballot papers in a bid to rig their way to victory.

The Somaliland Electoral Commission (SEC) said the fraud was being done in collaboration with crooked Somaliland printing merchants, but it was not clear the extent of the scam.

Some "candidates gave the ballots to printing houses in Somaliland after obtaining the sample when commission conducted civic education for voters," SEC chief Ahmed Haji Adami said in a brief statement.

The panel said the scam, which was unearthed by Somaliland security officials, was being probed.

Attempts to sneak fake ballot papers into the electoral boxes during voting on September 29 will result to immediate disqualifaction of candidate, Adami warned.

In addition, the panel urged members of the public to "confront those attempting to use the fake ballots", during the first parliamentary polls in Somaliland since the region declared its independence from Somalia proper in 1991.

The SEC warned that a ballot paper was a legal document and any trader faking it might lose his licence.

Officials said the genuine ballot papers were printed in Britain with a security water mark, unlike the fakes which were printed in backstreets in the capital Hargeisa.

The election board estimates more than 800,000 voters -- out of Somaliland's population of some three million people -- will cast ballots in the polls in which 246 candidates, including five women, are vying for 82 parliamentary seats.

The next presidential election is to be held in 2008 and the next local elections in 2007.

Lawmakers who made up the first Somali parliament that followed the secession in 1991 were appointed by elders. -

Source: AFP, Sept. 20, 2005

 





 


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