Lawmakers, reject charlatans and traitors. Elect the best candidate who has the nation’s interest at heart.

By The Star Editorial Board

On Wednesday, May 11, 2022, candidates running for the nation’s top seat have officially kicked off their campaigns, delivering impassioned speeches pleading for votes in front of hundreds of members of the two houses of parliament who will on Sunday elect a president to end the electoral stalemate that dragged on for more than a year and three months.

That is a major milestone for the country for two salient reasons.

Firstly, a termed-out government can’t continue to lead the country when it is grappling with major security, political, economic and humanitarian crises.

Secondly, the lack of a political stability begets, as the recent history attests to, more problems that only gives more ammunition to evil forces hell-bent on perpetuating chaos in the country.

Somalia is – as it always is – fortunate. It’s ducked grave political and security crises one after the other the last few years, crises mainly engineered by foreign countries and their local collaborators unhappy with the little, Somalia-owned progress made possible under the current administration.

But a nation’s wellbeing and its future can’t depend on its luck alone. Its leaders must find the right strategy to insulate it from potential risks that are likely to hinder its long-term developmental goals.

Currently, however, the need for electing a legitimate and respected president who will appoint a competent — not a flunky — prime minister is the most urgent task at hand, and our members of parliament, at long last, have a real opportunity to steady the ship — either to renew the mandate of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed “Farmajo” or pick a new one.

The future of the country is, after Allah, in our representatives’ hands, and they must reject the jokesters, charlatans, traitors, failures and foreign agents masquerading as viable candidates, and instead lend their votes to the best candidate who has the nation’s interest at heart and who has the right experience and proper qualification to turn our nation around.

We call on our members of parliament to be alive to the fact that the country is under a serious, relentless and ruthless attack by many evil forces abetted by Somali enablers. Our lawmakers have to be aware of the stooges funded with tens of millions of dollars by foreign countries so as they later serve their interests should they — God forbid — win the presidency. Some of the presidential candidates begging for your votes are criminals — and don’t you, lawmakers, forget it.

Somalia solely belongs to Somalis, and this motto must be translated into actual votes for a Somali nationalist who will stand up to foreign bullies and their destructive interferences in our country’s affairs. It’s past time a peaceful and functioning Somalia took its rightful place among nations.

It’s sad that the country squandered more than a year on avoidable and unnecessary political bickering between President Farmajo and recalcitrant Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble over when and how to hold parliamentary and presidential elections.

We share the sentiment made on Tuesday by 24 countries and six international organizations that urged “Somalia’s leaders to conclude this final stage of the electoral process swiftly, peacefully and credibly so that attention can turn to domestic and state-building priorities.”

We add to that the integrity of the process, which matters paramountly, as an irreproachable outcome would help the victor to swing into action as soon as he’s declared the winner.

The country is already in a humanitarian emergency, with more than 6 million Somalis, or 38 percent of the total Somali population, facing “Crisis or worse”, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, a multi-partner initiative. The figure, the organization said in its latest report, includes “1.7 million people in Emergency and more than 81,000 facing Catastrophe.”

“Worsening drought is putting some areas and population groups across Somalia at risk of Famine through June 2022 if the current April to June Gu season rains fail, food prices continue to rise sharply and humanitarian assistance is not scaled up to reach the country’s most vulnerable population,” said the IPC.

Three United Nations agencies issued a similar warning last month, saying that millions of Somalis are “at risk of sliding into famine as the impact of a prolonged drought continues to destroy lives and livelihoods, and growing needs outpace available resources for humanitarian assistance.”

These warnings coupled with the need to fix other pressing, national issues — such as the need to rid the country of al Shabab militants and the urgency to fix the faulty constitution that has made governance hard in the country – must force our members of parliament to make a judicious use of their votes. They must attentively listen to every word that comes out of the candidates’ mouths (and remember it), assess its impact on and benefit for the nation for the next four years and then vote in the best candidate.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. The contest is between the enemies of Somalia whose schemes are to frustrate the country’s recovery march and true blue Somalis who are determined to move their country forward.

Our members of parliament, voting on behalf of more than 20 million Somalis inside and outside the country, must foil our enemy’ plot and stand by our country at its hour of need.

Your great country, Mudanayaal, needs you now. Your vote must be a vote of conscience and your decision must lay a solid foundation for our Republic. Think about the posterity when casting your ballots. Do not betray your oath of office and the Holy Quran you put your hands on.