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The mock election held last week in Hargeisa was successful and revealed important deficiencies that must be addressed before citizens head to the polls later this year, officials told Sabahi.

The mock election was held on May 16th at the National Electoral Commission (NEC) headquarters to test the new election process, which will require for the first time that citizens vote for individual candidates rather than for political party's closed listings, NEC officials told Sabahi.

The election was held in collaboration with Interpeace, an independent peace-building organisation based in Switzerland.

Two hundred men, women, senior citizens, and youths from various educational backgrounds participated in the trial run. Participants were selected by civil society groups to represent the broader population, NEC spokesperson Mohamed Ahmed Hirsi Gelleh said.

Each participant received $10 and was provided with a free ride to the polling station, Muse Yusuf, a 22-year-old voter, told Sabahi.

Results from the mock election revealed more voter education, increased staffing at polling stations and extended polling hours, are needed to adequately prepare for the upcoming council elections, Abdi Osman Haji Abdi, NEC's voter education manager, told Sabahi.

Abdi said the trial run has helped the agency figure out the kinks in the new system. "What we have gathered from the mock election will give us a chance to conduct a proper election [later]," he said.

Some of the other voting procedure changes will now include how candidates will be listed on the ballot. To accommodate the increased number of candidates, each candidate will be assigned a specific number which will take the place of previously used [party] logos, Gelleh said.

"If we were to use [party] logos for every candidate, then the ballot paper would be too long [and people] would not be able to vote [that way]" Gelleh said. "We worried that this change could be confusing for illiterate [voters]; we conducted this mock election to evaluate how long it takes for such a person to vote correctly for the candidate he/she wants."

NEC officers were on hand to verify whether participants filled the ballot papers correctly based on their voting intentions, said Rabi Sharif, a NEC polling station official.

Abdi told Sabahi the trial-run has helped NEC understand how much time voters need to accurately cast their vote, the number of people who can vote in one polling station during election day, and the number of polling stations and staff that will be needed.

"When preparing for a hard task and you are not experienced, the only way you can understand it is by testing it. Therefore, this mock election was important for us to prepare," he said.

On Monday, NEC officials and Interpeace representatives arrived in Addis Ababa to present the findings from the mock election to international donors, and share their projected costs for the real election, Abdi said.

A date for the election has not yet been set, but Gelleh said NEC will be able to make an announcement in the next few weeks. The agency hopes elections will be held before the end of the year, he said.

Nine political parties are scheduled to participate in the upcoming election, including the newly qualified parties: Umadda, Wadani, Nasiye, Haqsoor, Rays, and Dalsan. The election will take place in 23 districts and will be the fifth democratic election in Somaliland since 2002.