Mukhtar Robow, a former senior militant with Al-Shabaab, has registered a political party in Somalia.
With this move, the National Independent Electoral Commission (NIEC), the body legally mandated to register political parties in Somalia, Robow is now free to take part in elections.
On Wednesday, Halima Yarey, the Chairperson of NIEC, awarded an interim certificate of registration to Robow’s party.
His party would be known as Jubilee Party.
Consequently, the number of political parties in Somalia has risen to 60 after five other new parties were awarded the certificate of registration on October 7.
Robow is one of Al-Shabaab’s founding members. For years, he was deputy to Ahmed Godane, before the two fell out in 2013.
Currently, he is under house arrest in Mogadishu.
Security authorities in the country arrested him in 2018 for his links with the Al-Qaeda linked group.
However, his Jubilee Party is unlikely to participate in the coming elections.
An agreement signed last month between Federal Government of Somalia and Federal Member States agreed to proceed with the clan-based system.