With the president’s forwarding of the list of the nominees to the electoral commission, Somaliland has inched a step closer to the election. The forwarding of the list should have been a routine matter and should have been done without much fuss, especially after the thorny previous disputes that were only resolved with the 6-point agreement; unfortunately, that was not the case, and as usual, the president refused to submit the nominees of the Upper House and the opposition parties and insisted that they should be changed. This was a delay tactic, and it is through delay tactics like these that he has gotten close to two years of extra time as president. The president is clearly acting from the premise that a controversy is an opportunity for an extra day in office, and therefore, to paraphrase Rahm Emanuel, should not be wasted, regardless of the impact it will have on the people and the country. It is all part of the ruthless selfishness which guides this president and the small circle of self seekers around him. The president and his small circle of trusted advisers are even willing to jeopardize the long term interests of their own party to make a tactical gain at the moment, for they do not care that by cherry picking the list of nominees, they are setting a bad example that could come to haunt their party if the opposition wins.
With the submission of the commission nominees, the focus of the electoral process now moves from the president to parliament and the election commission. Once the election commission is formed the next obvious step is fixing the problem of the server and sorting out the electoral list, and the step after that is the election. In executing theses last two steps (fixing the server and conducting the election itself), Somalilanders would need the assistance of the international community. But as the example of the Afghanistan election has shown, even the broad financial, technical and military support of the international community cannot guarantee a successful election.
Ultimately, the success or failure of Somaliland’s election will depend on Somalilanders themselves. Still, the international community should make it clear from the outset that a fraudulent election will not be accepted from Somalilanders, the same way that a fraudulent election was not accepted from Afghanis.






 

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