Opposition leader and Chairman of Somaliland’s Waddani political party, the honorable Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi ‘Irro’, repeated on Monday that he and his party lost in the race for the presidency because of, among other reasons, the ‘dead’ voting against his favor.
The opposition leader spoke to the press a day after he met with the winner of the 13 November presidential elections in the Republic of Somaliland, the newly-elected president, His Excellency Musa Behi Abdi.
The two met at the Presidential palace to, primarily, strike a common ground for the way ahead.
Waddani leaders, although grudgingly conceding defeat, insisted that the elections were rigged and fraught with anomalies non-consistent with a fair and free balloting despite the testimony of both national and international observers who declared it a shining example of democracy in practice.
Mr. Abdirahman stated that he and his colleagues discussed issues that included election transparency with the President.
“We believe the recent elections were fraught with corruption. We believe a great number of people not present at the polling stations voted. We believe the ‘dead’ voted,” he said.
Waddani trailed Kulmiye by 79,817 (15.4%) votes on the final tally of 555,142 votes cast.
Mr. Irro said his party will act its part as an opposition party and that he hoped the government will demonstrate the necessary tolerance for opposition heat. That the leader was still sending a kind of message that would only entrench the more militant elements of his support base on further subversive courses marred the euphoria created by the gesture.
Waddani leaders meeting the new president at his office was, to the majority of Somalilanders, a national cause for rejoice. Many hoped that Waddani would, at long last, cease to denigrate the internationally hailed election and begin to wholeheartedly accept the results without trying to consistently blame its failure on macabre, implausible factors.
