2021 Somaliland parliamentary election

Somaliland, a self-declared sovereign state in the Horn of Africa which declared independence from Somalia in 1991, had not held elections to parliament since 2005. Unlike Somalia, which has experienced three decades of civil war, Somaliland has largely maintained peace. After several weeks of negotiations with the NEC on the practicality of organizing elections in that time, a revised date of May 2021 was settled upon. Local politicians called the election evidence of Somaliland's stability, and expressed hope that a successful democratic election would potentially increase Somaliland's international recognition. Ahmed Dheere, the vice-chairman of the ruling Kulmiye Peace, Unity, and Development Party, told reporters "I cannot tell you how important these elections are. We will be the sunshine of the Horn of Africa if we have successful polls". Mark Bradbury, director of the Rift Valley Institute, said that "Somaliland could well end up as the only place in the Horn of Africa that has any form of democratic election at all this year". Both president Muse Bihi Abdi and opposition leader Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi called for peace from voters. Before the election, the House of Representatives had no members of minority clans and only one woman. In 2021, one member of a minority clan and 13 women ran for office. However, none of the women were elected. Five opposition candidates were arrested before the election, and several journalists were detained. Some politicians criticized the government for perpetually delayed elections and criticized the unelected House of Elders, calling both corrupt and undemocratic. According to activist Ayan Mahamoud, "the two most pressing issues are rights of minority groups such as Gaboye communities and women". Waddani, the major opposition party, made the promotion of women and minorities in society a key issue. The party, aligned with the left wing economically but socially tied to Islamism and nationalism, included in its party manifesto a quorum of women comprising 30 percent of the parliament. Kulmiye, an observer party of the Liberal International, has historically sought the establishment of a market economy but more recently has called for the nationalisation of some companies and a welfare program funded by a wealth tax. Kulmiye was seen as the front-runner ahead of the election. UCID, an observer party of the Socialist International, supports social democratic positions. ==Electoral system==

The 82 MPs in the lower House of Representatives of Somaliland are elected in six multi-member constituencies coterminous with the regions of Somaliland, using open list proportional representation for a five-year term. There is a constitutional limit of three legal political parties at the national level. Residents aged 15 or older are able to vote. ==Conduct==

1,065,847 people registered to vote in the parliamentary election, a record for Somaliland. Polls opened at 7 a.m. on 31 May. Like the 2017 presidential election, the parliamentary election used iris recognition technology; the 2017 election marked the first time such technology was used for a national election. The 2021 election had 2,709 polling stations, an increase of 61 percent from 2017, with more than 30,000 people staffing the polls. Somaliland, one of the world's poorest nations with a government budget of $339 million, paid for 70 percent of the election's $21.8 million cost; the rest was funded by the European Union, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. Ambassadors from 10 European nations and a European Union ambassador came to the city of Hargeisa to show support for the election. == Results ==

Official results of the election took about a week to be announced. In those districts, Kulmiye received 24 seats, Waddani received 15, and UCID received 10. On 6 June, the NEC published the final results, announcing that Waddani had received 31 seats, Kulmiye had received 30 seats, and UCID had received 21 seats. In a joint statement, Waddani and UCID announced they would form a governing coalition. Waddani and UCID also won a majority of seats together in the municipal elections. Of the 13 female candidates, none were elected to a parliamentary seat. By region ==Aftermath==

Following the election, the British Embassy published a joint statement of the United Kingdom, the European Union, and several European nations congratulating Somaliland on the elections, which they said "demonstrated a strong commitment to the electoral process, to political participation and to strengthening democracy." Michelle D. Gavin of the Council on Foreign Relations praised Somaliland for the election, saying "Somaliland is not perfect; no place on earth is. But in the midst of regional crisis and global democratic backsliding, Somaliland's achievements and dogged commitment to its principles deserve more notice. Somaliland stands as a rebuke to those who claim that authoritarianism is simply the required price of stability in the region, or that democratic principles are a fetish of foreigners with no real traction on the ground." ==References==