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By voting
to endorse the 6-point agreement between the three political parties
rather than extend the president’s term without the opposition parties’
agreement, Somaliland’s Upper House did the right thing for itself and
for the country. It did the right thing for itself because doing
otherwise would have ruined its reputation, and it did the right thing
for the country because doing otherwise would have worsened the
country’s political situation.
In addition to endorsing the 6 point agreement, the Upper House’s vote
stipulated that the president has to transfer power one month after the
election, if he loses the election that is. The president’s supporters
may argue that, in effect, this amounts to an extension of the
president’s term, and they would be right, but that is beside the point,
because the opposition had already accepted in principle that the
president’s term be extended but what they were insisting on was that
the extension should be something that was agreed upon by the three
political parties, and not one in which the Upper House was blindly
executing the wishes of the president. The 6 points plus the stipulation
that the president hand over power a month after the election gave each
side what it wanted. The opposition can now say that the Upper House
ratified the agreement between the three political parties and the
government can say it got extension.
Looked at dispassionately, what happened looks like a package deal. The
opposition accepted an extension of the president’s term that is tied to
the time it would take to fix the server problem. It also agreed to drop
its support for the parliamentary majority’s impeachment drive. The
government accepted that the voter-registration list be the basis for
the election after it is corrected. The government also agreed to
changes in the electoral commission. Since the elements of this deal
were quite apparent for some time, the question then arises why were
Somaliland’s political leaders were unable to reach it themselves and
without the involvement of the international community (or rather those
members of the international community who care about Somaliland)? There
are several reasons for this, but the most important one is that
although there were several areas of disagreement between the government
and the opposition parties, the core of the problem was the issue of the
server, an issue that Somalilanders neither had the technological
know-how nor the financial wherewithal to fix. It may be too early to
extrapolate from this that Somaliland has entered a new phase in which
it has become dependent upon the international community for solving
fundamental problems, but at least in the case of the election, there is
little doubt that the international community will have to play a
positive role for a fair and free election to take place. So far, the
international community’s role has been mixed. On the one hand, the
server and voter-registration provided by the international community
had some flaws which exacerbated the political problems in the country,
but on the other hand, the international community’s judicious and
patient nudging helped in finding a formula out of a dangerous
situation. Now the international community has to quickly fulfill its
promises. The first step in this direction is for the international
community to bring to Somaliland technical experts who can fix the
server and sort out the voter-registration problem. The second step is
to help with establishing an effective electoral commission. With those
two problems under control, the election date could then be set up.
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