Member State of the Arab League Indirect presidential elections were held in Somalia on 8 February 2017.

The presidential elections had been planned for August 2016 and promised to be a one-person, one-vote national poll, but had been postponed several times and shifted to an electoral college system due to security concerns.

The vote was initially planned to be held at a Mogadishu police academy but was moved to the more secure Aden Adde International Airport, considered as the safest place in Somalia's Capital.

Plans in 2016–2017 for a full election involving all adult Somalis were scrapped due to security concerns relating to the ongoing civil war.

[5] The election costs were 60% funded by donor countries in Europe, the United States and Japan, with the remainder from the Somali government and candidate registration fees.

Several candidates paid political unknowns to run against them to add a veneer of legitimacy to their races, and analysts have said that Al-Shabaab did not interfere with the election, as the corruption involved made the group look good by comparison.