Ballot fraud rocks Somaliland
2005-09-19 21:42
Nairobi - The electoral panel in the Somali breakaway region of Somaliland said on Monday some candidates in 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.
SEC chief Ahmed Haji Adami said some "candidates gave the ballots to printing houses in Somaliland after obtaining the sample when commission conducted civic education for voters".
The panel said the scam, which was unearthed by Somaliland security officials, was being probed.
Adami warned that attempts to sneak fake ballot papers into the electoral boxes during voting on September 29 would result to immediate disqualification of candidate.
Ballot paper 'a legal document'
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 back streets in the capital Hargeisa.
The election board estimated more than 800 000 voters - out of Somaliland's population of some three million people - would cast ballots in the polls in which 246 candidates, including five women, were vying for 82 parliamentary seats.
The next presidential election was to be held in 2008 and the next local elections in 2007.
Elders appointed lawmakers who made up the first Somali parliament that followed the secession in 1991.