For the first time since 2003, and after two years of delays and disputes over voter registration, Somalilanders will vote in the second Presidential election in their young country's history.
Founded
in 1991, after the Somali National Movement (SNM) defeated President
Barre's troops in Northern Somalia, Somaliland remains unrecognized.
While under international law their existence is relatively sound –
British Somaliland, its former territory, joined together with
Italian Somaliland (Puntland and southern Somalia) after five days as
an independent country in its own right – the rest of the world
still supports the Transitional Federal Government, which has little
representation from Northern Somali clans. Siad Barre virtually
ignored the north of Somalia for decades during his rule, which saw
him invest most of his country's wealth into the then-capital
Mogadishu. Then, when the SNM was founded in the late 1980s, Barre's
troops brutally bombed and destroyed critical northern towns and
slaughtered countless civilians. The SNM's victory was not intended
to set Somaliland onto a path of independence, but popular pressure
forced the SNM-led government to declare independence.
The territory held by Somaliland is dominated by one particular clan, the Isaaq, who make up approximately 70% of the population – though within this clan there are several sub-clans. Using traditional institutions, Somalilanders achieved peace over a period of a decade while southern Somalia further fragmented and collapsed into violence. Later, Somalilanders voted on a constitution that declared them a separate Republic and held both parliamentary and presidential elections – all with little to no international assistance.
For a more detailed account of Somaliland's local peace-building and state-building efforts, check out Mark Bradbury's Becoming Somaliland. Derived from years of experience working in Somaliland, it is probably the best and perhaps only book solely focused on this small country's remarkable achievements.
This year's election features the same three candidates as those in 2003, let's take a look at the Somaliland political system.
After passing the constitutional referendum in 2001 with well over 90 percent of the vote, Somaliland embarked on a new political path. The first elections to be held following this constitution were municipal, and to reduce the clan-based dimension of politics there were minimum requirements for parties to move onto other elections. To become an accredited national party, an organization had to earn at least 20 percent of vote in four of six regions. If this was not achieved, only the top three parties would move onto parliamentary elections. In the end, three parties emerged as viable national movements: UDUB, Kulmiye, and UCID.
UDUB – (United Democratic People's Party) Founded by former president Mohammed Egal (who died in office), this party was considered the party of his successor, Dahir Riyale Kahin. Government media tended to favour this party in its coverage of the elections, and as a result it achieved the highest voting percentage of any party.
Kulmiye – (the Unity Party) Established by Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud 'Silanyo', a former members of Siad Barre's regime before joining the SNM rebel group. It is considered the next most viable political party, with a secular bend and a strong ability to raise funding from the large Somaliland diaspora.
UCID (Justice and Welfare Party) Led by Faisal Ali Farah 'Waraabe', who lived in Finland during part of Barre's regime, this party somewhat favours the European centre-left welfare state model. It came third in municipal elections.
These parties then competed for the Presidential elections of 2003, and the results were extremely close, with UDUB's candidate and then-president Dahir Riyale Kahin coming eighty votes ahead of Kulmiye's Ahmed 'Silanyo', who eventually conceded the election. While the vote had several irregularities, partly because the eastern Sool and Sanaag regions remained under the control of clans that supported the regional government of Puntland next door, it was a testament to the hard work of Somalilanders that minimal violence occurred.
In 2005, Parliamentary elections were held with over two hundred candidates running for the eighty-two available seats. In the end, the parties split the vote and created an opposition-led parliament even though the government's party earned the single most seats:
2005 Parliamentary Elections, Somaliland
-
Party
Percent of Vote
Parliamentary Seats
UDUB
39
33
Kulmiye
34
28
ICUD
27
21
It should be noted that the constitution created not just the lower-house of parliament but also an upper house led by a set distribution of clan elders, a system that blended traditional society with Western democracy in a peculiar fashion.
While these elections were significant achievements, by the time it came to hold new Presidential elections in 2008 there were serious impediments. Opposition parties complained the President had placed his own supporters in the National Electoral Commission (NEC), and that the voter registration held by the organization was extremely flawed. Over the next two years, disputes led the President attempting to hold elections on his own, only to halt them when it became clear the small but crucial group of NGOs proving electoral financing would not support any such move.
After signing an Tri-Party agreement, election preparations began in late-2009, with voter registration completed in early 2010. So today, Saturday June 26th, Somaliland voters will go to the polls for the first time in over seven years to elect a new President.
While its unclear who will be victorious, my only hope is that the election is as free and fair as possible and that all parties refrain from any violence. According to a prominent NGO in the country, this appears to be the case so far. When the election results are announced, I will post them and provide some analysis.
Until then, here's some Al-Jazeera links that can shed some light on Somaliland:
Somaliland's electoral crisis in late 2009
good work.to defeat extremism in somalia "alshabaab"the world must support and invest in somaliland.
Posted by: halyey | 06/27/2010 at 12:35 AM