Opposition candidates meeting in Mogadishu since Friday have asked three Federal Member States (FMS) to remove National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) officers from their electoral commissions.
The 14 opposition candidates for the presidential race urged Galmudug, Southwest, and HirShabelle to remove NISA agents, civil servants, and President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo’s loyalists from the polls bodies.
For several weeks now, they have accused Farmaajo of filling the polls bodies with his loyalists.
They claimed that such a move puts them at a disadvantage since the loyalists, civil servants, and NISA agents would only be interested in doing Farmaajo’s biddings thus compromising the integrity of the electoral process and the subsequent outcome of the results.
The 14 candidates also urged Puntland and Jubbaland to review or replace civil servants from the two regions who are in the list. However, they did not set deadlines for the regional states. It is not yet clear whether they would come up with more demands.