Does Kulmiye’s Somaliland Map Include Awdal And Sool?

Editorial: Awdalnews

As Kulmiye Party convenes its congress to nominate its leadership in the run up to Somaliland’s Presidential elections due to be held around May 2008, many questions come in people’s minds such as can Kulmiye party remodel itself? Can it outgrow its narrow, jihadist, rabble rousing and everything goes strategy? Will the party welcome new blood into its leadership or will the old guard stay dead in the trenches? Will it adopt a more peaceful, reconciliatory and inclusive political debate or will it continue with its acerbic, partisan and divisive rhetoric? Will it workout a pragmatic national and international political strategy and development plans for the country or will it continue surviving on impulsive reactions to political situations arising from the actions of the government? Will it admit its mistakes in the past and be honest about its blunders or will it gloss over its past and live in the dream world of the SNM glory and Mujahideen legacy? And finally will it prove itself to be a national party or would it rather carry on with its clan balkanization policies?

Until now Kulmiye’s agenda has been based on personal vendettas and political extremism. In their eyes, the existing government was always wrong, the country’s upper house and courts were stooges, and the constitution was rubbish when it clashed with their interests. It did not hesitate to turn every incident the government encountered into a national crisis.

One of its glaring strategic mistakes was when Ahmed Sillanyo compared the AU-supported Ethiopian intervention in Somalia to the genocide committed by Siyad Barre’s regime against the people of Somaliland. His intention might have been to oppose the UDUB government’s tacit support for the Ethiopian adventure and capitalize on many of Somaliland people’s strong sentiments against the Darood but he did not realize that he was shooting himself in the foot. And rather than rectifying this political blunder most of the party’s elite and its media outlets echoed Sillanyo’s stance, some of them even sounding more pro Islamic courts of Mogadishu than pro Somaliland.

Another blunder was Ahmed Sillanyo uncalculated policy of completely writing off the whole region of Awdal and if the leaked information on the number of slotted delegate seats of the party congress to different regions and clans is correct, has also discarded the region of Sool and part of Sanaag.

Sillanyo did not even utter a word when football hooligans, perceivably acting on Kulmiye’s sentiments, attacked the winning Awdal football team in Hargeysa. Faisal Ali Waraabe was quick to condemn the action as unpatriotic and derided the parents of those youth of being responsible for their behavior. The government dispatched a group of ministers including the Mayor of Hargeysa to Borama to show its displeasure of what happened. But Sillanyo remained mum, hence sending a message that for his party the Awdal football team and President Rayale were the same.

He couldn’t even praise the stance of the elders of Borama who explained to their sons that the incident was an isolated action by unruly youth and that they should not put it under tribal labels. But there is no doubt that Sillanyo would have made it a crisis had the youth from Kulmiye’s strongholds been stoned in Borama. And how can the party explain Sillanyo’s lack of interest in making a tour in the Awdal region. One may question Kulmiye’s map of Somaliland. Does it include Awdal or Sool for that matter? The answer will definitely come when Kulmiye declares its candidates for the upcoming presidential elections. It would either heed Osman Hindi’s wake up call and adopt an inclusive policy or put its identity as a national party into question.

Source: Awdalnews

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