The 1969 Somali election deployed the state machinery to keep the regime in power

Evidence

The 1969 election was the toughest in the country’s history, and the machinery of the state was fully deployed to return the ruling regime to power. In contrast, Hussen and his party ran a shoestring operation, and he shuttled between Garowe, Galkayo, and Mogadishu to campaign for those seats. Except for occasional attempts by thugs to harass or intimidate Hussen, the regime turned its attention to the selection of the civil servants who staffed the polling stations. Most of the sixty-four political parties were allowed to have their observers in the polling stations, although the civil servants managed the stations. The day of reckoning came on March 26, 1969, and it was reported that violence marred a number of areas, although the majority of polling stations did not see any violence. It has been estimated that nearly forty people lost their lives during the campaign. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 1020

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the earlier narrative of Abdirazak Hussen’s democratic campaign against the incumbent regime and to broader African post-independence electoral history.