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.
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