The milestones made by the Office of Registrar of Political Parties in managing political parties and country’s electoral process will be a key reference point to guide Somalia in its preparation for national elections. To initiate the engagement towards this resolve, ORPP played host to a delegation from the Registrar of Political Parties, Somalia for a study visit from 11th to 14th November, 2019.
The visiting team sought to learn from Kenyan experiences of the electoral governance system as a critical phase towards preparing the country’s first democratic elections after over five decades.
Giving brief of the visit on day one, Mohamed Omar Ahmed, the Somalia’s Registrar of Political Parties singled out ORPP as one of the targeted institutions that is deemed to have played central role towards political processes in Kenya and made imprint on its role across the Africa. As such he noted, “as one of the identified partners for corporation towards our election preparations, we are so glad to have gotten the opportunity to visit and learn how to run politics, how to guide political parties as vehicles of entrenching democracy and other areas that underpin the entire spectrum of managing politics.
He further observed that the visit demonstrated the long standing partnership with Kenyan institutions and cordial bilateral relations between the two countries, which Somalia is committed to foster.
His counterpart, Registrar of Political Parties, Ann Nderitu noting the Office delight to host the guests as an opportunity also to learn from the Somalia experience. “As we take you through the specific areas for each of our functional areas in the course of your study tour, we will appreciate to learn from you as we strive to optimize effectiveness on our tasks”, noted Ms. Nderitu.
The team also visited the Political Parties Dispute Tribunal (PPDT) to learn the country’s political-related dispute resolution mechanisms that complements the political parties’ dispute mechanisms.
The Somalia’s Registrar of Political Parties operates under the precincts of the National Independent Elections Commission (NIEC) established in 2015 as one of key institutional foundations for a centralized management of the country’s democratic national elections scheduled for 2020.