Somaliland at 20

[Jacaylbaro]

 

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the day when, in the wake of the collapse of the Somali state, clan elders in the onetime British Protectorate of Somaliland proclaimed their sovereignty. In the two decades since, while the rest of the country became the exemplar par excellence of a failed state, one best known today for maritime piracy and a brutal Islamist, Somalilanders have more or less succeeded in building for themselves a viable polity, albeit one lacking international recognition, due to the resistance of other African countries to secessionism.

 

Left to their own devices, Somalilanders nonetheless drafted a constitution which provided for an executive branch consisting of a directly elected president and vice president and appointed ministers; a bicameral legislature consisting of an elected House of Representatives and an upper chamber of elders, the guurti; and an independent judiciary. The most recent elections, the internationally-monitored presidential poll in June 2010, resulted in the defeat of incumbent Dahir Riyale Kahin, the election of Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud (popularly known as “Silanyo”), and a smooth transition between the two—an unheard of occurrence in the region.

 

Despite its largely successful record and notwithstanding that a 2005 report of a African Union fact-finding mission which concluded that “the fact that the union between Somaliland and Somalia was never ratified and also malfunctioned when it went into action from 1960 to 1990, makes Somaliland’s search for recognition historically unique and self-justified in African political history” and recommended that “the AU should find a special method of dealing with this outstanding case,” no country has yet recognized Somaliland’s bid for independence. This apparent snub, while grating to Somalilanders, has not prevented them from building a vibrant polity with a lively civil society.

 

 

READ MORE ............. http://www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/somaliland-20