20030422KULMIYE Claims Being Ahead of UDUB By 76 Votes

Hargeysa (SL Times): The KULMIYE opposition party says it has come up with evidence that it was actually ahead of the UDUB party in last week’s presidential election results by a margin of 76 votes.

At a press conference held on Tuesday in Ming Sing restaurant, KULMIYE party leaders challenged the official results of Somaliland’s first elections as announced by the National Electoral Commission on April 19.

The results of the April 14, 2003 election declared UDUB party candidate and incumbent Somaliland president Dahir Rayale Kahin the winner by just 80 votes more than his closest opponent, KULMIYE’s Ahmed Mohamed Sillanyo.

Speaking to reporters and specially invited guests that included traditional community and religious leaders, the NEC chairman, members of the Guurti and parliament, the Electoral Watch Committee and a number of international observers, KULMIYE party chairman Ahmed Sillanyo reiterated that his party won the election.

Party officials presented extracts of NEC documents on votes cast in Buroa and Gar-Adag districts.

Using a large screen projector, KULMIYE’s Abdi Aw Dahir showed the audience how 133 votes cast in Buroa in favor of KULMIYE were omitted due to a calculation error from the total district votes it had actually received.

Dr. Dahir also illustrated how a total of 23 extra votes (16 to Buroa total and 7 to Gar-Adag total) were added to UDUB’s total for unknown reasons.

According to the official results announced by the NEC, UDUB received a total of 205,595 votes against 205,515 for KULMIYE.

KULMIYE officials had indicated that the party was going to contest the preliminary election results in the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, UDUB spokesman Ahmed Hashi told reporters that his party was deprived of over ten thousand votes after they had been cancelled by the NEC. Hashi said the action was unjustifiable. He added that UDUB would seek a court action to nullify the cancellation.