An Unconstitutional Step

EDITORIAL

On the instigation of President Dahir Rayale, the Guurti (House of Elders) moved on last Sunday to vote itself in office for a 4-year term that is supposed to last till October 2010.

With the exception of the president and his closest cronies and the members of the Guurti as well as the Supreme Court, the decision of the Elders to extend their own term had apparently caught everyone else in Somaliland by a total surprise. But as there was neither precedence nor a constitutional provision to support it, the move is likely to plunge the country into a serious political crisis.

The majority of the Somaliland public reacted with shock, anger and disapproval of not only the Guurti’s action but also the obviously conspiratorial role played by the president and the Supreme Court in the whole affair of the extension.

The opposition parties have already rejected the Guurti’s decision as unconstitutional. The opposition insists that political parties nominate members of the new House of Elders on the basis of the share of seats that each party received during the last elections of the lower house of parliament (House of Representatives). So far there has been only a few voices that came out publicly in support of the 4-year term extension.

Somalilanders who went to the polls in the last 3 years to elect their local council members, president of the country and representatives in the lower house of parliament are unable to swallow the fact that an unelected house of elders had in effect voted itself for a new term in office without even conducting prior consultations with the elected members of the parliament or with the traditional elders of the communities.

Given the little precious time left from now untill October 2006 which is when the Guurti’s tenure expires, most people would have agreed that extension was the only realistic option. However that was a matter for the House of Representatives to consider as has been the case in previous extensions, and not to be decided by the president and a constitutional court whose members were liable, with the exception of the chairman, to dismissal by the executive.

President Rayale who has been hallucinating from the September parliamentary elections in which the opposition won the majority of seats in the lower house has had a clear motive in seeking an extension for the elders: to forego the possibility of the opposition gaining control of the Guurti on the one hand and buying the allegiance of current members of the upper house on the other.

The announcement of the extension has however ruined the reputation of the Guurti to the extent that an increasing number of Somalilanders have been publicly calling for the dismantling of the Guurti. The way out of this mess is for the Guurti to accept the unconstitutionality of last Sunday’s decision and then immediately initiate consultations with the lower house, traditional leaders and representatives of civic groups with the aim of reaching a consensus on a reasonable and workable option.

Despite the fact that the current members of the Guurti have allowed themselves to be abused by the executive, however, as an institution the house of elders still remains indispensable. It is this marriage between our traditional egalitarianism and modernity that has made Somaliland’s unique system of governance not only viable but also democratic and sustainable.

Source: Somaliland Times

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