Issue 210

According to American Heritage Dictionary Bicameral System is governmental system dividing the legislative function between two chambers, an “upper,” and a “lower,” chamber. The term bicameral was coined by Jeremy Bentham in 1832, although the division of the legislative branch of government by function and composition was used earlier then that... there are several advantages of the Bicameral System: Bicameral chambers has the capacity to represent diverse constituencies (regional, class, ethnic, clan etc.) It hinders the passage of flawed legislation (one chamber can act as a check upon the other).In two legislative bodies, there is better oversight of the executive branch.

Unicameral System:

Unicameral system is the practice of having only one legislative or parliamentary chamber. Many countries with unicameral legislatures are often small and homogeneous unitary states and consider an upper house or second chamber unnecessary. In contemporary democracies theirs exist also a weak political party system in which legislators are not bounded by the political party ideology. They are often free to express their views, preferences; they have an individual power to influence when a bill is brought before the house or how a bill should be written or should look like. The president in that case has to negotiate all members of legislature individually but, to over come this political drawback the president uses pork barell to persuade legislators to support his presidential agenda( economic, social, and political). Weak party system is more advantageous for legislators because there is no incentive for them to build strong political party. On the other hand strong political parties have a fewer decision makers, all legislative differences are hammered out and settled within the party apparatus before bills are brought for debate and vote. Party members are bound to vote based on the consensus of each party how to vote on particular bill or legislation. Strong political party systems facilitates and permits easy formulation of bills.

In a democratic government, sovereignty is derived from the consent of the people to govern. However, the power is vested indirectly with the people who can influence and change those held that power through contested direct or indirect free and fair elections. In a constitutional democracy the authority of the majority is limited by constitution; furthermore, legal and institutional mechanisms are put in place to protect the vested interests of the citizenry and guarantee the constitutional and civil rights of individuals and minorities. Constitutional democracy is antithesis to the arbitrary and ad hoc rule that were rampant in the developing countries during the 1960s to early 1990s.

The salient features of constitutional democracy are popular sovereignty, majority rule and minority rights, limited government, institutional and procedural limitation on power. Power is defined as long term strategic positioning by an individual, group or a clan in nomadic societies to gain all or majority control of means of social and economic control through mobilization of organizational resources. In constitutional democracy governments can be arranged and take different forms and structures such as unitary, federal and confederate systems. Most of the contemporary democracies that we know today are either unitary or federal in nature. In unitary system the central government has full powers and it may assign or entrust some of its powers to a subordinate regional and/or local authorities for convenience and those entities are answerable to the central government in certain matters only. In case of Somaliland the regional governors are appointed by the government and come under the jurisdiction of Interior Ministry while local municipalities are directly elected by the people through municipal elections

In recent decades of emerging democracies in the developing world, the most important decision that ordinary people can embark on is to choose a method to elect its leader and representatives that is suitable to their unique local political culture. The two systems generally practiced around the free world are the parliamentary and presidential systems. In the parliamentary system, the party that receives most of the votes emerges as the majority party in the house and form the government after votes are counted, certified by competent election commission, and the highest court of the land announced election results, if however, a clear majority dose not emerge a coalition of two or more parties can form alliance were by the president or the king/Queen can then ask the party with the most votes form a coalition government. The parliamentary system was first used in Great Britain and subsequently adapted by its former colonies after independence and currently used by number of countries including Canada, India, and Australia. In the presidential system, the president is elected through direct elections independent from legislative elections. Typically, the term of office of the president is 4-7 years. USA, France, The Philippines, and Somaliland practice this system. If we look the structure of the Somaliland system of government we can say with confidence that it has some elements and features of both the systems.

Having two lawmaking chambers called Bicameral System emerged out of a diminishing and declining authority of monarchy system in the European countries. Where there was a need for inclusion and broad political representation in Europe during the 18th century dominated by aristocracy and the inclusion of the common man in the political system were uncommon, it worth mentioning also the birth of republican form of government in the United States after the American Revolution that brought about federal system, where sparsely populated states demanded and required from the federal government to constitute a fair system of representation in the congress. In recent years, unicameral systems, or those with one legislative chamber with one party system were associated and identified with authoritarian and dictatorial regimes. Although after World War II and most recently during the height of the Cold War a tendency for tolerance come into view for unicameral one party political polity by western nations . In last decade and half and after the fall of Communism it emerged in the developing world a different view that has swept across the continents and changed the landscape of political scene around the globe and there appeared a general trend toward two chambers in emerging democracies in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe particularly larger countries. As for small countries with homogenous population like ours there is a debate if bicameral system is more appropriate. However, during SNM struggle and post Siyad Barre era an incremental democratization process would not have been possible without crafting some sort of indigenous council system such as Somaliland Tribal Council known as Guurti System to supplement the unicameral system. Newly emerging democratic governments must undergo an arduous deliberative process before choosing whether one-chamber or two chambers serve better their needs considering the protracted freedom struggle and the colonial historical legacy, post colonial social, cultural, political, and economic factors.

Dr Mohamud Tani in his recent piece (A Redundant Gentleman) raised an interesting point regarding the effectiveness of party leaders if they do not lead their caucus from the house chamber Although, I utterly disagree with his characterization of leaders of opposition parties as redundant gentlemen and most of his analysis. I believe he interjected a legitimate question in the political discourse in Somaliland. The reason why someone has to raise this question is the dissonance between the party structure and the Somaliland polity which has a dual structure when choosing who to govern the country. We are neither absolute presidential system nor parliamentary system in nature.

E-mail: adualeh@yahoo.com

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