Hargeisa ( Commentary) — Every ten years the incumbent Somaliland administration organises a competition for existing political parties and new political associations. The goal is to renew the political landscape and show complacent political leaders the door. In 2012 more than four political associations and two political parties contested for the privilege to retain party status or become a political party. Waddani, the main opposition party, emerged as a winner and filled a lacuna vacated by UDUB, one-time ruling party that disintegrated following disagreements over a successor party leader.
Waddani came second in the 2017 presidential elections with 41 per cent of the total votes. During the 2021 parliamentary elections the party won regional seats enough to win the parliamentary speakership. This political progress masked the threat Waddani could face if the once in a decade contest for party status gets underway in 2022. Waddani senior leadership proposes that presidential elections ought to take place in November 2022 without the three major parties and the newly registered political associations vying for political party status.
As it stands, the three Somaliland political partied are led by men from the same clan. President Muse Bihi Abdi and his ruling party, Kulmiye, argue that government’s mandate includes the responsibility to organise the contest for party status and diversify the staid party politics dominated by politicians from one social group. The Somaliland electoral law is on the side of President Bihi.
Presidential elections can only take place when political stake holders have honoured the decade-old practice of reinvigorating the political process. Waddani and UCID, another political party, fear that their chances of winning enough votes to retain party status could be undercut by contestant political associations. Profesor Ahmed Ismail Samatar, a former dean of the Institute for Global Citizenship at Macalester College, has registered Hillaac, a political association. He campaigns on a reform ticket to transform the Somaliland politics still steeped in the hybrid system that leaves the political process incapable of addressing political crises.
Twenty nine years ago the late President Mohamed Ibrahim Egal was elected in Borama where a conference was taking place. In 2001, a year before his passing, Egal introduced multiparty system in parts of the ex-British Somaliland. This initiative culminated in the 2003 presidential elections. Since then two more presidential elections were conducted in 2010 and 2017, and two parliamentary elections in 2005 and 2021.
President Bihi claims to be preserving the legacy of Egal, who revolutionised politics in the north by forming an alliance made up of different social groups. Unless Waddani leadership crafts a popular strategy aimed at diversifying the political landscape, President Bihi’s argument — that new diverse political parties can lead to timely political renewal — will remain both appealing and legally defensible.
© Puntland Post, 2022
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