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While
Somalilanders were still expressing their dismay regarding the Aug. 24
melee that took place in parliament, they had to contend with the even
more shocking news from the Sept.8 parliamentary session. If the
Aug.24th session was limited to the breaking of chairs and shouting
matches, the Sept.8 session was much uglier with fist-fights and one
parliamentarian even drawing a pistol. The reason why this is happening
is not difficult to ascertain. Parliamentarians opposed to the current
government want to impeach the president and they know they have the
legal mandate and enough votes to do so. Pro-government parliamentarians
know that they do not have the votes to stop the impeachment motion and
want to prevent its passage by any means necessary. The side that wants
to impeach the president is composed mainly, but not exclusively, of the
opposition parties (Kulmiye and Ucid), while the pro-government group is
composed of mainly, but not exclusively, the ruling UDUB party.
That it is the ruling party’s strategy to make parliament dysfunctional
is openly stated by the pro-government side. The parliamentarian who
drew the gun inside parliament, Abdirahman Mohamed Jama (Aw-Xoog)
himself said in an interview that parliament should be shut down
otherwise there is going to be violence and even threatened bloody
murder.
Creating chaos in parliament is not only being done by the
pro-government parliamentarians but by the government itself, with the
ministers of interior, finance, as well as other ministers openly
attacking parliament and making defamatory statements designed to
discredit it. This is all common knowledge. The question then becomes
how did the anti-government parliamentary majority handle the situation?
The answer is that while they handled it very well in the Aug.24th
session where they mostly did not allow themselves to be drawn into the
trap laid for them by the government’s supporters, some members of the
opposition failed to show such restraint in the Sept.8 session and
participated in the violence with one of them (Basher Hussein Tukaale)
even admitting in a VOA interview that he did indeed throw a punch and
apologizing for it. Once the situation got chaotic inside parliament,
the government executed its plan and took over the parliament under the
pretext of ensuring public order, when, in fact, the government itself
was behind the disorder in parliament.
So we have a parliament that is trying to impeach the president and a
government, or to be blunt, a president, who orchestrated violence in
parliament and then shut it down to prevent his impeachment. The
takeover by parliament has ushered in a new situation, where a president
whose elected term has expired about two years ago and who is only in
office because of an extension has closed down an elected parliament
whose term has not expired. That is not democracy, it is dictatorship.
Dahir Rayale Kahin knows it. His ministers know it. Everyone knows it.
Whatever reservations we had about the impeachment, and we did have some
serious reservations about the appropriateness of introducing this
motion at such a delicate time when the country is already confronting
more than enough problems regarding the election and voter registration,
and whether it was not overkill to impeach an unpopular president with
less than two months left from his term in office, all of that is now
moot given the takeover of parliament by the government.
By orchestrating violence in parliament, then taking over parliament,
Somaliland’s government has turned back the clock and resurrected the
ghosts of the former military dictatorship. It has shown that it puts
its own interests before the public interest and would resort to violent
methods to perpetuate its rule. A government that has no qualms about
orchestrating violence against elected parliamentarians and running
rough shod over a national institution will have even lesser qualms
about subjecting ordinary citizens to violence. Therefore, it cannot be
trusted.
The fact that the government has finally backed off and sent away the
police that took over the parliament’s building is no credit to it. What
happened on Sept.8 is a deep wound to Somaliland’s democracy and just
one more reason why not to return President Dahir Rayale Kahin to power
after his term extension ends in late October.
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