Opposition wins seats in Djibouti’s National Assembly
The preliminary results of the National Assembly election for Djibouti city (on February 22nd) were announced by the Minister of Interior, Mr. Hassan Darar Houffaneh, the day after the election. There were 123,000 votes, and the ruling coalition, the Union for the Presidential Majority (UMP), took 49.39% of the votes against 47.61% for the main opposition coalition, the National Union for Salvation (USN) and 2.91% for the smaller Union of Centre Democrats (CDU). In two of the other five districts, the regions of Ali Sabieh and Dikhil south of the country, preliminary results also suggested the Union for the Presidential Majority (UMP) had won. At Dikhil, the turnout was over 54%, and the UMP obtained nearly 70% of the vote, ahead of the USN which only obtained 20%. Participation was also over 50% in Ali Sabieh. The Interior Minister was quoted as saying the provisional results showed that the Union for the Presidential Majority (UMP) had won 49 out of 65 seats.
International observers who monitored the elections urged political actors to respect the will of the people and to use legal remedies for any potential challenge. In a joint statement, the heads of the Observer Missions of the African Union, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Conference and IGAD said the parliamentary elections on Friday (February 22nd) had given the Djibouti people the opportunity to express their opinion freely. They praised "the civic and political maturity of Djibouti." The head of the AU’s Observer Mission, the former Prime Minister of Mali, Mme Cissé Mariam Sidibe Kaidama, said the voting took place in a transparent and acceptable manner. She said: “We have not observed fraud and ballot box stuffing”, adding that the announced results reflected what the international observers had observed in the field. The head of the observer mission of the OIC, Ambassador Habib Kaabachi, said voting was one of the most regular of which he had ever attended: "It is certain that Djibouti is back on the right track to democracy". The head of the Arab League mission said the observers had inspected more than 154 polling centers and attended sorting in 12 voting centers, and “it all took place in a climate of transparency and serenity."
It was the first time in a decade that opposition parties had decided to take part in the elections and a spokesman for the USN said the results had been announced too quickly and claimed there had been numerous irregularities, ballot stuffing, double voting, a lack of voter cards, the expulsion of opposition representatives from polling stations, and the intimidating presence of the Republican Guard at polling stations. The opposition disputed the results and called for protests. On Monday and Tuesday there were demonstrations in Djibouti demanding the release of Sheikh Bashir Abdourahim, a prominent opposition figure whose family said he had been arrested on Monday. The Interior Minister, Hassan Darar, made a radio broadcast appealing for calm, but made no reference to Sheikh Abdourahim, and there was no official confirmation of his arrest.
Despite opposition claims of manipulation, the election is widely seen as significant because it will allow the opposition their first presence in the National Assembly. This was facilitated by President Ismail Omar Guelleh who accepted a change in the electoral law to allow for some proportional representation. Until the change in the law, all 65 seats were elected by plurality vote in multi-member constituencies with the winning party taking all seats. Under the change in November last year, 52 seats continue to be chosen in the same way but 13 are elected by proportional representation. The result is that there will be opposition members represented in the Assembly for the first time. President Guelleh became President in 1999 and won a third term five year in office in 2011 after the Assembly had amended the Constitution to allow him a third term. He has said he will not stand again.
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* Originally published on A Week in the Horn – March 1, 2013 issue, titled “Opposition wins seats in Djibouti’s National Assembly”. Items from A Week in the Horn are re-published here with a permission to do so.
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