By Mohamud Tani

Three Gentlemen ran for the honor of the president’s seat and power, one of them won and therefore got the title of the honorable President, two of them lost and therefore failed to be constitutionally bestowed by the title of the honorable Gentleman. Yet again in the parliamentary contest, over two hundred candidates ran for the honorable title and power of a member of parliament. Only 82 of them won the chance of becoming the constitutional representatives of the people and therefore the title of the honorable M.P. All those who failed to earn the trust of the people as their legal representatives, either in the contest for presidency or for the parliament are just ordinary citizens with no constitutional mandate nor any moral authority to speak on behalf of the public. Somaliland has now an elected president and an elected legislative body. The political debate is only between them and between them only. No more pamphleteering and press conference politics, the actual mature debate on the business of legislating and governing will happen in the floor of the parliament of Somaliland .

A question has to be raised here. What is the present constitutional status of the two Gentlemen Chairmen of our two wonderful opposition parties? Now that the democratic process is complete in Somaliland , we ended up having an elected honorable president, an elected eighty two honorable members of parliament. They earned these titles and these prefixes to their names by the fact that they ran for the honor of becoming the constitutional representatives of the people and winning it.

Three Gentlemen ran for the honor of the president’s seat and power, one of them won and therefore got the title of the honorable President, two of them lost and therefore failed to be constitutionally bestowed by the title of the honorable Gentleman. Yet again in the parliamentary contest, over two hundred candidates ran for the honorable title and power of a member of parliament. Only 82 of them won the chance of becoming the constitutional representatives of the people and therefore the title of the honorable M.P. All those who failed to earn the trust of the people as their legal representatives, either in the contest for presidency or for the parliament are just ordinary citizens with no constitutional mandate nor any moral authority to speak on behalf of the public. Somaliland has now an elected president and an elected legislative body. The political debate is only between them and between them only. No more pamphleteering and press conference politics, the actual mature debate on the business of legislating and governing will happen in the floor of the parliament of Somaliland .

Winston Churchill said “Of all the titles that I ever earned in my life; in Military, in aristocracy, in scholarship and in politics, that of M.P written behind my name gives me the greatest satisfaction.” The Gentlemen Chairmen of the opposition parties did not grasp the moment to earn that title, and prior to that they failed in getting elected president. As far as I am concerned they missed the boat and are now the odd man out. They are irrelevant and redundant as far the constitutionality of their role as politicians is concerned.

Soon the parliamentary caucus of the Kulmiye party will choose their leader in parliament. He or she will participate the debates of the floor as the honorable leader of the official opposition. So will the parliamentary caucus of the UCID party will choose their leader and he will participate the debates as the honorable parliamentary leader of the third party. These people will forward their bills and programs with the power of having won their positions by the will and the vote of the electors. From now and on they will be the political leaders of their respective parties, and the Gentlemen Chairmen will only will only have a mandate for the organizational and the administrative affairs of the party. Organization and administration period.

The Gentlemen Chairmen have forfeited all political roles for themselves by the mere fact of not occupying any nationally elected office whatsoever. It is obvious that these two Gentlemen did say pass to the run for the parliament in order to run for president later on. I am afraid that they made a great miscalculation there also. Other people will come out and seek the nomination of their respective parties for the race of the presidency. There will be a primary and there will be a convention. If the present Gentlemen Chairmen would like to seek the nomination of their parties as their candidate ticket for president, they would have to surrender their present positions as chairmen of the parties, for the chairman of the party is the one who is conducting the convention and therefore should be someone who is not running and who could be an arbiter and the neutral by stander for the contesting candidates. In the United States the chairman of the party never runs for office, he is only mandated to build the party, financially, organizationally and otherwise.

Some people may understand my analysis as either doing injustice to these Gentlemen Chairmen or diminishing the importance of their historical role as exponents of great political parties that contributed to the development of the political culture of Somaliland . Far from that, I applaud them and would give them the greatest medals of Honor and achievement that they deserve, naturally to the best of my limited abilities. What I am only emphasizing here is that thanks to them and to the parties they organized, the torch has been passed to those who ended up being elected by the people. The bearers of the torch are in the parliament in the presidency i.e. in the elected offices. Anybody else who tries to speak from a position of authority , without having an elected mandate from the people is only a spoiler, a pretender, an imposter and someone who is just a leader in his own dreams.

mohamudtmohamud_t@yahoo.com

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