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So here we
go again. After taking seven years to prepare for an election,
Somaliland is exactly where it was seven years ago. This election was
supposed to be an improvement on the last election, and towards that
end, a voter registration program was undertaken. However, there are
serious disagreements about the results of the voter registration with
the two opposition parties, the Chairman of the House of elders, the
Speaker of Parliament, Interpeace and international donors supporting
the results of the voter registration while the Election Commission and
the ruling party are opposing the results of the voter registration.
Ordinary Somalilanders are confused and do not know what to make of what
they are being told by their political leaders, especially since some of
those leaders who are now opposed to the voter registration used to
support it at one time, and some of those who are favoring it now used
to oppose it on earlier occasions. One thing is clear though: the voter
registration mess is due to failure of leadership on the part of
Somaliland’s political elite. The biggest culprit is, of course, the
government, because it is its responsibility to prepare the country for
the presidential election before the end of its term. Not only has the
government failed to prepare the country for election within its 5 year
mandate, but even after getting two extra years, the country is in no
better position than it was 7 years ago. This however, does not mean
that the government is the only entity that is responsible for the voter
registration problem. The opposition parties and Interpeace also bear
some responsibility, but the second highest share of responsibility for
the fiasco, after the government, goes to the electoral commission which
has failed in its duty of preventing multiple registrations.
But leaving the question of who is to blame aside, the important
question facing Somalilanders is what to do with less than two months
left for the presidential election. There are two choices: either to
spend more time and energy fixing the registered voter list and thereby
risk not having an election on Sept.27 or have an election without a
list of registered voters. No doubt, these are two bad choices, but the
latter choice is less bad than the former. Therefore, Somalilanders have
to make the best of a bad situation and have an election without a
registered list of voters because the other alternative will mean
further delay, and further delay would create a political environment
that Somaliland will be unable to cope with, and that will de-legitimize
the whole political process. In other words, Somalilanders have to bite
the bullet and do what they have to do, rather than wait for what they
would like to do.
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