The Post-local election period in Somaliland

Somaliland has been enjoying stability in last 21 years of existence while the rest of Somalia was/is in a chaotic situation where peace and security does not exist.

There have been a number of governments that came to power because they were elected democratically by the public while at the same time they went because the public elected other leaders to govern. Somaliland’ situation was always different from the other countries in the horn-region when it comes to democracy, because it practiced a democratic system of governance and peaceful transfer of power and it has achieved a lot.

The recent local elections was also another prove that the democratic system in Somaliland is valid and can work while this made Somaliland to be a role model for the countries in the region. As our neighbors watch they witness that the way Somaliland people bring their leaders to power is purely democratic since they do not enjoy that system of governance.

Despite this positive achievement, Somaliland’s democratic system of governance is young enough and requires sometime to grow stronger to contextualize and assimilate with the social way of life.

I said that because so far there are certain social behaviors those are threats to the democratic system of Somaliland and can impede the development of stronger Somaliland democracy, since we did not reach a point of no return.
What I know so far is that Somaliland’s democratic way of governance has many enemies but the number one enemy is something that exists domestically or internally and it’s the way people nurture and protect it. If that fails, there is no one that can guarantee to borrow us. Imposed, because it was not imposed by foreign power it is something that people have chosen and accepted.

To make the point clear, the greatest threat to the thriving Somaliland democracy is the tribal system that the community lives. It is how we see each other and how communities socially and traditionally perceive one another. If the two systems (the traditional and the democratic modern) are harmonized then democracy will survive and get stronger but if the two systems run parallel and they contradict each other then probably it means that people want to live more on traditionally and does not care much about the modern way of democratic governance.
In the last local elections of Somaliland that took place on 28th November 2012, there were some lessons that it drew. The main one that I think I have learned is that our traditional way of life and governance, which is the tribal one is still strong and have influence to our democratic future.
Finally, I believe that we still have rooms for improvement for our democratization process and both the government and the community should learn from the elections so that it should be consolidated making mature democracy.

Abdirisak Mohamed Warsame.. is the Somaliland Monitor-blog (caadleef.wordpress.com) Director/Editor. He is also a junior Political Analyst of Somaliland and World affairs Especially the Horn and Middle-east. He writes opinion and News articles about Somaliland and other world trends in this Blog and other Media Channels and He is a 17 years expert on Somaliland Human Right and Mental Health Resource Person. You can also reach him with his personal Email: caadleef@hotmail.com