Somaliland diary: Life as an election observer

[Jacaylbaro]

TO QUOTE one of my more knowledgeable colleagues: “Elections are funny things. Highly technical and procedural exercises that are yet filled with emotion and rhetoric.” During Britain’s recent election, emotion ran short. In Somaliland, it is present in spades. An election in a bit of Somalia, the world’s most failed state, is something to get emotional about.

 

The streets of Hargeisa, Somaliland’s ramshackle and dusty capital, are a carnival. I am here in the north-west of what is still officially Somalia as part of a team of international observers, invited by Somaliland’s electoral commission, for the final week of the de facto state’s presidential election, to (they hope) verify the process, and, if so, help strengthen Somaliland’s long campaign for official recognition.

 

Somalilanders, manacled to the profoundly failed state in the south, crave recognition, and all the advantages—such as multilateral assistance—it brings. But in the African Union, they lack allies, with the likes of Morocco fearful of what it could mean for their own claim over Western Sahara. Still, while pursuing the distant dream, Somalilanders have got on with state-building. This second presidential election (the first was in 2003, followed by a parliamentary election in 2005) is the latest stage of a democratic experiment as Athenian as it gets these days, that the world has largely failed to notice.

 

Many of my fellow observers—59 of us, from 16 countries, including a fair swathe of diaspora Somalilanders—believe deeply in what Somaliland is trying to do. Me, I’m also curious. This is Somalia, after all. Dinner-party conversation-starters sorted for months. But the stakes are high, with long delays in holding the poll, originally set for 2008, sharpening tensions. And there is a chill from the south, where al-Shabaab are no fans of the idea of a democratic secessionist state. Disruption of the election would be a hot ticket, an incident involving foreigners—election observers perhaps—better still.

 

At our first security briefing the point is underlined: “See you on YouTube, with a bag over your head”. On that jocular note, we hit Hargeisa’s streets. Our spirits lift immediately. Somalilanders, it is clear, have not let the long wait for the poll dim their enthusiasm.

 

We foreigners, the non-Somali ones anyway, can only hope to absorb so much. So we fall back on the visuals. To avoid potential clashes, the three candidates take it in turns to campaign exclusively on particular days. Long trains of cars, buses and trucks, each crammed with more people—men, women and children, the young vastly outnumbering the middle-aged and the old—than the technology should rightly bear thread through the streets. Loudspeakers blare, women ululate.

 

One day the livery is green (President Dahir Riyale Kahin of UDUB, the ruling party, whose posters put him in a suit far wider than he is), the next yellow (Ahmed Silanyo of the Kulmiye party, loser by 80 votes to Mr Riyale in the previous presidential election), the next green-and-white (Faisal Ali Waraabe of the UCID party, a Finnish national, who, alongside his running mate, beams at us from billboards “looking like a badly dressed gay couple at a civil wedding”, a fellow observer… observes).

 

Women in hijab cover their heads in the colours of their allegiance; six-year-olds leap upon our bonnets waving their flags. Even the goats, ubiquitous on the streets, are bedecked in party colours. But each day, some of the faces, the people’s anyway, are the same. Could this election simply be an excuse to party?

 

Well, it’s a good party, and little distinguishes the candidates after all. Policy is thin on the ground, apart from a need for “development” and (even for the incumbent) “change”. Our highly unscientific straw-polling on the streets reveals an appetite for “change”. What change? “Change.” Hopes are high, but the how is a mystery. Time up for Mr Riyale, perhaps.

 

Like a proper election anywhere, the candidates avoid specifics, devoting their time to attacking one another. The buzz on the streets says Mr Silanyo, an aging scion of the independence movement that fought Somalia’s last military regime, will take it by a landslide. I ask a senior Kulmiye man what makes his boss the one. “A gorilla in a swimsuit could beat Riyale”, he replies. A ringing endorsement indeed.

 

The main fears concern the result, and the potential for violence which could be unleashed by a narrow one, with most Somalilanders less concerned (we grasp for comfort) at the potential for al-Shabaab disturbance. When we ask them, each candidate pledges to respect the result, whatever it is. But what else would they say at this stage?

 

Polling day arrives, with no serious violence, and we are still alive. Our teams (with armed guards) are dispatched to all six of Somaliland’s far-flung regions, with the diaspora members sent to the tenser ones. Here is where the technical and procedural part kicks in. For this vote, Somaliland is trying out a new voter-ID system, and the potential for fraud and confusion is thought to be high. If that happens, we expect no shortage of the wrong sort of emotion.

 

In the meantime, it is the more positive emotion that dominates. From the crack of dawn, and even the night before, mostly good-natured queues (men and women separately, with far more of the latter, it appears) form outside the polling stations in schools, houses, tents, halls and government buildings throughout the land. I find myself blinking at the unruly crowds: should we really be here? This is Somalia, after all.

 

But voting proceeds smoothly, if slowly at first, with the young polling station staff (mostly students from Somaliland’s few universities) managing mainly to avoid becoming overwhelmed. For in the queues and even in the stations, the party atmosphere continues, with emotion occasionally swimming over as the sun beats down, and the lines drag.

 

On the phones at our Hargeisa base, some worrying reports creep in. At one station, stones have been thrown on the roof, shots fired into the air. False alarm: simply Somaliland-style crowd control. In the wild east, where some clans are no fans of Somaliland, there are more serious reports: ballot boxes have been blocked and a female electoral commission staffer (first worryingly described as an “election observer” in reports) shot dead. We telephone our teams there, tell them to keep to the towns. But, thankfully, it is the only serious violence of the day. Could this really be Somalia?

 

In Mr Riyale’s home region, alongside the Ethiopian border, observers encounter crowds of children in queues, then crowds of people handing out voter cards. “Vote early, vote often” seems to be the name of the game. But we are observers, not monitors. We note it down: one for the final report.

 

And to the aftermath. Back in our digs—our gilded cage—at the Hotel Man Soor, Hargeisa’s finest, all safe and sound, we congratulate ourselves on our bravery, swap war stories, and await the result. And wait. And wait. Five days later, we are still waiting, as the arcane system of Somaliland-style vote-counting goes on. But we note, alongside us in the Man Soor’s carparks, lobbies and dining areas, crowds of smiling Kulmiye operatives, slapping eachother on the back, shaking hands, deep in discussion, doing deals.

 

The word is that a provisional result, and a peaceful change, is imminent. In Somalia—this is still Somalia—that is something worth getting emotional about. And worth noticing too.

[Thankful]

Originally posted by Jacaylbaro:

In Somalia—this is still Somalia—that is something worth getting emotional about. And worth noticing too.

I agree!

 

Polling day arrives, with no serious violence, and we are still alive.

Our teams (with armed guards) are dispatched to all six of Somaliland’s far-flung regions, with the diaspora members sent to the tenser ones.

Of those 6 far-flung regions, the tensers ones can be reasonably assumed to be Sool and Sanaag where diaspora memebrs were sent to???

 

So why do some gets all fussy when I say this to?

[Suldaanka]

An Awdalite, member of the Progressio SL born voter observer team.

 

 

My Observations Of Somaliland’s 2010 Presidential Elections

 

- Aman H. D. Obsiye

 

When my father was born he was a colonial subject for the British Empire. On June 26th, 1960 he became a free citizen. Fifty years later, his American born son, had the opportunity to return to his birth city and be an International Election Observer (Progressio) for Somaliland’s 2010 Presidential elections. My team observed the Borama district of Awdal province, and we visited ten polling centers in the eastern rural area. The voting process was extremely meticulous. In order to vote you must have had a voter registration card, which looked like a typical American driver license. If you did not have a voter registration card, you must have had a validation certificate and your name must have been on the voters list. The voters list had complementary photos next to every name. This process insured that only registered voters voted, and it diminished any chance of manipulative voting.

It should be noted that polling station workers were students from Amoud University and Hargeysa University. I was very impressed by the polling station workers’ management skills. Also, every polling station had political party agents, playing the roles of checkers and balancers. These agents did their own count of how many voters came to their respective polling station.

 

Once the polling station workers deemed you eligible, they took your left-thumb print and than placed it next to your name and photo. The ballots were vividly colored with each parties name and symbol on it. The voting booth was secured and voters were able to vote secretly. After voting, the voter placed their ballot into a sealed ballot box.

 

If a voter was illiterate, a polling station worker asked the voter who they wanted to vote for. After that, they placed an “X” next to their respective candidate and showed their fellow workers, and political party agents, the vote. Once everyone agreed that the “X” was placed in the correct slot, the worker folded the ballot and gave it back to the voter to place in the ballot box. The illiterate were empowered by this process, further strengthening Somaliland’s democratic character. After the voter cast their vote, their left pinky finger was dipped into indelible ink, diminishing the possibility of double voting (it should be noted that polling station workers checked everyone’s hands before giving them a ballot).

 

After observing the ten rural polling stations, my team returned to Borama (capital of Awdal province) and observed the closing of a polling station. The process of counting the ballots was also meticulous. The polling station workers unsealed the ballot box, counted the votes openly, than resealed the ballot box. After the total was calculated, all polling station workers and party agents signed a document indicating that they all agreed on the results.

 

In conclusion, I am proud to say that overall I observed free and fair elections. Somaliland continues to prove that an Islamic African country can be democratic. I was extremely impressed by the numerous women voting, some polling stations had more women than men voters. The international community should welcome the Republic of Somaliland as the world’s newest democracy.

[Jacaylbaro]

I met most of those observers during the campaigning, election and post-election days and all i can say is that they were all amazed by the level of democracy in Somaliland.

 

Most of them predicted that there would be a civil war but then again had to leave with a second opinion.

 

I'm glad they started to write and put this in their diaries to stay there for the rest of their lives.