{"id":48127,"date":"2026-10-15T20:48:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T18:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=48127"},"modified":"2026-10-15T20:51:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T18:51:17","slug":"somalia-to-hold-a-presidential-election-in-may-2027","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/somalia-to-hold-a-presidential-election-in-may-2027\/","title":{"rendered":"Somalia to hold a presidential election in May 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Somalia&#8217;s electoral commission said this Thursday the Horn of Africa country \u200bwill hold a presidential election on \u200cMay 15 next year.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud&#8217;s term was due to end in May \u200bthis year, but in March lawmakers voted \u200bto enact constitutional changes that potentially \u2060extend his term by a year, \u200ba move that drew criticism from the \u200bopposition.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Mohamud&#8217;s government has struggled to defeat the al Qaeda-allied militant group al Shabaab, which has been \u200bfighting Somalia&#8217;s central government for two \u200bdecades.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>While the military, backed by an African Union \u200cpeacekeeping \u2060mission, has pushed back the militants, al Shabaab still controls vast areas of the countryside and has the ability to \u200bconduct regular \u200bstrikes \u2060on major population centres.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The electoral body&#8217;s Chairperson, Abdikarim Ahmed Hassan, \u200bmade the announcement on the state \u200bbroadcaster \u2060and added that the country would also hold elections for members of parliament \u2060for \u200bboth the lower and \u200bupper chambers on April 15.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22340,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-48127","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Mohamud's government has struggled to defeat the al Qaeda-allied militant group al Shabaab.","published_date":"","news_description":"Mohamud's government has struggled to defeat the al Qaeda-allied militant group al Shabaab.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48129,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48127\/revisions\/48129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=48127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}