1956 Italian Somaliland parliamentary election

Election Parliamentary elections were held in Italian Trust Territory of Somaliland in February 1956.Dolf Sternberger, Bernhard Vogel, Dieter Nohlen & Klaus Landfried (1978) Die Wahl der Parlamente: Band II: Afrika, Zweiter Halbband, p1918 The result was a victory for the Somali Youth League (SYL), which won 43 of the 60 elected seats in the Territorial Council.Elections in Somalia https://web.archive.org/web/20250211174838/https://africanelections.tripod.com/so.html 2025-02-11 African Elections Database Electoral system The Territorial Council had a total of 70 seats, of which 60 were elected in 25 constituencies ranging in size from one to five seats. The other ten seats were reserved for minority groups; four for Italians, four for Arabs, one for Indians and one for Pakistanis. Only men over the age of 21 were allowed to vote, whilst candidates had to be at least 30, literate in both Arabic and Roman alphabets, and have been resident in Somalia for at least a year prior to the elections.Sternberger et al., pp1919−1920 The elections were direct in towns and municipalities, but indirect in rural areas, where members were elected by 613 "shirs" (open councils) between November 1955 and January 1956. The electoral laws were not applied entirely to the shirs, where voters could be as young as 15. The election was marred by voting irregularities. The total number of votes cast was around half the total population of the territory, 1,250,000. However, the total amount of eligible voters was no more than 300,000. Fraud came from tribal chiefs who registered non-existent voters to inflate results for their preferred candidates.Ware Gilbert From Trust Territory to Nation, 1950-1960 Phylon 1965 26 2 174 and 178 https://doi.org/10.2307/273632 21 August 2026 Results Somali Youth League 333820 43 Hizbia Digil and Mirifle 159967 13 Somali Democratic Movement 80866 3 Somali National Union 21630 0 Marehan Union 11358 1 Afgoi-Audegle 3441 0 Somali Hawiya Youth Union 1846 0 Six Shidle 1550 0 Somali Bagiuni Fichirini 426 0 Reserved seats 10 0 FurtadoFurtado References Category:1956 in Somalia Italian Somaliland Category:Parliamentary elections in Somalia Category:February 1956 in Africa Category:Election and referendum articles with incomplete results