{"id":32409,"date":"2017-02-08T04:42:12","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T04:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/somalia-presidential-vote-at-mogadishu-airport\/"},"modified":"2017-02-08T04:42:07","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T04:42:07","slug":"somalia-presidential-vote-at-mogadishu-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/somalia-presidential-vote-at-mogadishu-airport\/","title":{"rendered":"Somalia presidential vote at Mogadishu airport"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Somalia’s MPs are due to elect the country’s president at the heavily guarded airport complex in Mogadishu, as the rest of the capital is not safe.}<\/p>\n

Traffic has been banned, schools have been shut and a no-fly zone imposed over Mogadishu to prevent attacks.<\/p>\n

Despite this, suspected militant Islamists fired mortar rounds close to the venue on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Somalia, marred by religious and clan conflict, has not had a one-person one-vote democratic election since 1969.<\/p>\n

That vote was followed by a coup, dictatorship and conflict involving clan militias and Islamist extremists.<\/p>\n

The elections are seen as part of a lengthy and complex process to help the East African state rebuild its democracy and achieve stability.<\/p>\n

More than 20,000 African Union (AU) troops are stationed in Somalia to prevent militant Islamist group al-Shabab from overthrowing the weak government.<\/p>\n

Over 20 candidates are vying to become president, with the top three proceeding to a second round of voting and the top two from that round going forward to a third and final vote.<\/p>\n

The election hall is a converted aircraft hangar, and is packed with MPs, reports the BBC’s Ferdinand Omondi from the venue.<\/p>\n

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is standing for re-election and analysts say he is likely to be one of those who goes forward to the later rounds.<\/p>\n

The airport is viewed as the most secure site and voting was moved there from a police academy because of growing security concerns.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday evening, suspected Al-Shabab militants launched a series of attacks, with two mortar rounds fired close to the venue where the voting venue.<\/p>\n

Residents in Arbacow village outside Mogadishu say jihadists attacked an AU base there.<\/p>\n

Al-Shabab has a presence in much of the southern third of the country and has previously attacked the Somali parliament, presidential palace, courts, hotels and the fortified airport zone.<\/p>\n

At least 19 politicians, as well as many civilians and soldiers, have been killed in its assaults.<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s security measures include a ban on flights to and from Mogadishu airport.<\/p>\n

Correspondents said most schools and offices remained open on Tuesday but people had had to walk to reach their destination.<\/p>\n

Analysts say holding the election in the airport environment may also reduce the possibility of vote buying or other corruption in the election process.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Somalia’s MPs are due to elect the country’s president at the heavily guarded airport complex in Mogadishu, as the rest of the capital is not safe.} Traffic has been banned, schools have been shut and a no-fly zone imposed over Mogadishu to prevent attacks. Despite this, suspected militant Islamists fired mortar rounds close to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-32409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32409"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32409"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}