After a lot hassle and bustle, the electoral commission of Somaliland finally posted the total list of candidates in the upcoming parliamentary election. Now that the party lists are finalized, lets pause a moment and reflect on how the candidate selection process had been accomplished.
Long before the finalization of party lists, candidate hopefuls organized numerous meetings for their sub-clans and Jilibs, maneuverings for intra-clan confidence and support in their bids to parliamentary seats. Tribal elders cashed in on the opportunity and many candidates competing for the confidence of the tribal elders had to dish out to the latter an amount of money ranging from 500 to 1000 payable in US dollars. As a result, candidate hopefuls with cash in their pockets won the tribal confidence over those who lacked it, money becoming an important intermediary in the struggle for party lists. This development was further encouraged by the three political parties which gave priority to candidates who enjoyed the confidence of a Sultan, a Boqor or even a tribal chief, over those who were not so fortunate.
Party membership, discipline, and merit suffered in the selection of parliamentary candidates. Rank and file party hopefuls were thrown out of the window, while brand new candidates were recruited into party lists. This is symptomatic of the mismatch between modern parliamentary democracy as it is practiced in the West and how it would fare in traditional parochial systems dominant in many developing countries.
It is no secret that the majority of parliamentary candidates coveted a place in UDUB and Kulmiye party lists; two parties which secured most of the votes in the previous presidential and local council elections held in the country. Candidates queued up to UDUB and KULMIYE parties under the assumption that the two parties will win, this time round as well, the majority of the seats up for grabs in the election. Given the constant shifting of tribal allegiances in the system, this assumption is problematic at best. Nevertheless, tribal elders stepped on each others toes to put their candidates in Kulmiye and UDUB part lists.
Conversely, UCID party list was less competitive, where candidates managed without much ado to secure places in the list on first come, first served basis. Nonetheless, UCUD has taken UDUB by storm and captured some traditional UDUB constituencies in Togdheer and Sanaag regions.
When the party lists would finally be issued, the finite nature of the number of candidates in the lists was bound to disappoint many candidates, no less than their sponsoring tribes. As soon as the party lists were issued, candidates who failed to appear in the lists sounded the clarion call, denouncing political parties that failed to include them in their lists. It has become commonplace nowadays for one tribe or another to appear in the local papers, condemning this or that political party for rejecting their candidates. In addition, tribes declare the withdrawal of ‘their collective tribal confidence’ from one political party, while pledging their allegiance to another.
UDUB has been on the receiving end of the wrath of many tribal groupings, while Kulmiye was not spared either. UDUB was accused of badly mismanaging Hargiesa region party list. At the behest of UDUB leadership, the total number of parliamentary seats was divided initially on arbitrary regional basis, without factoring in the varied population statistics of the six regions in the country. Irrespective of this, UDUB leadership inserted in its Hargeisa region party list candidates coming from other regions in the country, while it excluded from the list candidates who considered themselves as belonging to Hargeisa region. No group complained about UCUD party list selection process.
The clearest example, by far, of the tribal factor in operation of the party list selection processes was provided by ex- minister of air transport and civil aviation of the government. In a dramatic decision, the minister resigned from his post, condemning the President strongly for interfering in the selection of Hargiesa region party list and causing a candidate of the same tribe with the Minister to lose his place in the list. In today’s Somaliland, there exist plenty of reasons for a Minister in the UDUB-dominated government to resign from power, tribal fidelity coming last in the list.
One wonders how a parliament selected and elected on the basis of ‘the tribal blood type’ could be different from it is predecessor, which was disbanded chiefly because it was selected on the Beel system?
A few nights ago, I watched on the new Somaliland TV Hargiesa municipality councilors in session. The councilors were shouting about, not debating over, a certain plot of public land which some of the councilors claimed that the mayor of Hargeisa gave illegally to his brother. While the councilors have the right to raise such an important issue, the way they were raising it left a lot to be desired. It was uncivilized, unethical, and clownish. I slept that night with a heavy heart, regretting ever voting for these political clowns.
What does all this say about the fledgling ‘democracy’ in Somaliland?
During its short period of existence, Somaliland has been progressing towards some semblance of democracy, albeit in a perverted form. Somaliland managed to conduct municipality and presidential elections and will soon conduct parliamentary elections in the country. However, traditional governance structures have been deliberately superimposed on the incipient democratic institutions in the country and the clan is the basis of all political action and a point of departure.
The proponents of traditional governance maintain that the system was espoused in order to reduce clan frictions and take maximum advantage of conflict resolution mechanism of traditional governance. Nonetheless, traditional governance failed miserably to deal with insidious malaises afflicting the system and seem to have seamlessly fused with it. Corruptions, nepotism, human rights violation, economic stagnation, and lack of accountability are some of the dominant feature of the political system in the country.
All that the clan based governance structures managed to achieve is to set up a system of ‘clan balance of terror’, which resulted in a fragile peace, punctuated occasionally by serious upsurges of violence and ruled over by a bunch of unrelenting kleptocrats.
Democracy in Somaliland, to paraphrase Clausewitz’s famous dictum, seems to be a continuation of clan warfare by other means.
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