The National Election Commission (NEC) Must Resign

Ali Gulaid (Ali Marshal)

The political stakes on the Presidential election held on April 14th were high. On the international level, fare and free elections would have enhanced Somaliland’s claim to recognition. On the national level, it would have strengthened the democratic principles and the multi-party system that are rare commodities in Sub-Saharan Africa. But the election was flawed and all bets are off internationally and nationally. Surprisingly, the voting has taken place peacefully and the fear of the much-anticipated violence remained to be just that - fear. But disappointingly the process of coordinating, sorting and counting the ballots proved to be murky, unreliable and contentious: there were omissions, errors and irregularities. And that might reflect negatively on Somaliland and its prospects for recognition. Worse yet, it might destabilize Somaliland and jeopardize the peace - the hallmark of Somaliland. The public has done its share, but the NEC fumbled and failed to do their duty. As a result, the NEC should resign gracefully.

In fairness, the commission was under-funded and the pressure of releasing the outcome was high. Inexperience, poorly trained staff, lack of equipment such as the necessary adding machines, tedious manual tallying, poor communication and unreliable transportation all played a role in creating the ensued confusion.

However, with due respect the commission was incompetent and ill-prepared but more importantly they exercised very poor judgment when it counted most. The manner the commission handled the critical issues exposed their lack of managerial and administrative skills: They failed to properly plan, identify and examine the numerous steps involved, resolve the bottlenecks timely and sufficiently supervise the staff in order to ensure the smooth running of the counting process. As a result, it was disorganized, chaotic and lacked standardization. Moreover, the operation lacked adequate internal controls and safeguards to ensure compiling and computing reliable, valid, and credible figures.

For example, the figures the regions have submitted to the headquarter have changed several times and the totals of each party by polling station of some regions were incorrect in numerous instances. In other instances, the total of the ballots casted were either over or under the ballots allocated to some polling stations. Whichever way one tries, vertically or horizontally the totals didn’t add up and in other occasions ballots assigned to certain party after re-examining the supposedly spoiled ballots were never recorded for the entitled party even though the accompanying supporting documents clearly indicated so. Still in other occasions, the irregularities documented by the regional court and communicated to the commission were ignored. Up to now, substantiated figures and authenticated documents are hard to come by. Rather than closely examining and analyzing the discrepancies, the commission let a junior staff member fed erroneous data into the computer and the computer spewed the same erroneous figures (garbage in, garbage-out). Unfortunately, the commission hastily approved and announced the preliminary result without carefully checking and foot totaling the figures and that negligence might tip the balance in one way or the other. Specifically, the commission and the senior staff didn’t bother to review, supervise, inspect, compare the preliminary final figures with those of the original supporting documents and resolve the outstanding disputes.

The statistically insignificant margin of 80 votes that separated the potential winner from the potential looser should have raised a flag of caution and should have dictated automatic recounting and double-checking at least. At that crucial juncture, the commission exercised poor judgment and this would undoubtedly haunt Somaliland for some time to come.

Moreover, the commission’s attitude towards the stakeholders was less than forthcoming, less responsive, defensive and some times bellicose. When obvious arithmetic errors were pointed out by some of the parties, the chairman and the vice-chairman gave different responses and that has compounded the confusion. While the chairman acknowledged the obvious, the vice-chairman defensively insisted otherwise. It also became questionable when the vice-chairman was speaking on behalf of the commission and when he was expressing his personal view. As of today, it is not clear who is the official spokesman of the commission.

In light of the less than perfect circumstances, other than poor judgment and the lack of adequate managerial skills, the commission as a whole acted in good faith and should be commended for the effort. But the effort fell short of satisfactory performance and that should cost them their job.

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