The 1964 election was Somalia’s most competitive because opposition fragmentation handed SYL dominance

Evidence

As the results trickled in, it became clear that this was the most competitive election in the country’s history (see table 5.4). Governing-party SYL barely gained a majority of the seats in parliament. It was able to command that slim majority because of the ten districts where opposition parties did not compete. These districts netted the SYL twenty-one deputies. Elsewhere, the opposition ran a credible campaign as the results show. Although the three major opposition parties garnered nearly 40 percent of the vote, their inability to form a coalition enabled the SYL to dominate the next parliamentary period. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 683

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the reading purpose of the 1960-69 democratic period narrative; opposition failure to coalesce recurs as a theme in Somali politics.