Mogadishu (PP Editorial) — The agreement on 2021 elections ends political uncertainty on one hand and complicates the status of federal institutions on the other, if the Federal Parliament endorses the deal signed today by the Federal Government, Federal Member States and Banadir region.
The modification of an article in Dhuusamareeb III Agreement that sanctioned hybrid electoral model — 4.5 powersharing arrangement and political parties — grants Federal Member States more influence to decide who will go to or return to Mogadishu as an MP or Senator.
Compared to the Vision 2016 which was touted as a steppingstone to remaining in power for the incumbent, the 2021 electoral model is a dramatic climbdown for the Fedeal Government of Somalia.
The Electoral Law will have to be abrogated to make way for an electoral model that institutionalises the 4.5 system, a social contract that relegates many Somali social groups to a second class citizenship.
The silver lining in the electoral deal is that the discriminatory nature of the powersharing system will not be deepened through the involvement of political parties in the forthcoming elections. The incompatibility of a multiparty system and political institutions based on a flawed powersharing arrangement has been self evident.
Puntland State signed up to the 2016 electoral model on the promise that the 4.5 system will be retired after 2017.
Two of its demands — the dissolution of the National Independent Electoral Commission and the abrogation of the Electoral Law — boosted its political fortunes at the expense of principles based on political equality and genuine representation for Somali social groups that the 4.5 powersharing system regards as non-stakeholders.
No representative from Fifth Clans had attended confrences out of which Dhuusamareeb and Mogadishu Agreements emerged.
Twenty years after the infamous 4.5 system was conceived in Djibouti the Somali political leaders had given it a new lease of life in Mogadishu.
The International Community emphasises the quota for women but pays no attention to the political marginalisation of Somali clans wrongly known as Others.
Somalia’s International Partners could do well to explore how the electoral model can be prevented from institutionalising political inequality in Somalia.
© Puntland Post, 2020
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