Time to reinvent the wheel !

The difficulties for Somalis is that we seem to lack the ability to see life beyond what is taking place before our eyes. Planning ahead for what may come down the road is something we are simply not equipped to do, nor do we seem to learn from our past mistakes and try to avoid repeating them. Somaliland illustrates this point quite nicely by its inability to deal with very predictable problems and address them before they get to the boiling point.

Election day finds the administration unprepared to hold elections times and again as they get surprised by this fateful day irrespective of how many extensions they request and get. Now it is not unusual for those who get to the seat of power to find reasons and arguments to want to remain there for as long as possible, what is interesting this time is the manner in which Mr. Rayale is going about to remain in power.

He is not claiming to be the legitimate president of the county, since his term ended on the 6th of April (Current controversial extension notwithstanding), but the default president until a new president is elected, and since he can manage to postpone the election indefinitely, he can remain in power indefinitely. This is not the first time a convoluted argument such as this one is put forward by a dictator, what is remarkable is that it can take place in Somaliland at all. After all this place and these people know a thing or two about death and destruction at the hand of a strong man, and a system that equates the president as the country itself and anyone opposing him as worthy of total annihilation.

This is where lessons learnt should by applying, where a strong line in the sand should be delineated  that we as whole have traveled this road before and never again should we be willing to trek it again.
The excesses of the abusive power of dictatorial regime is what caused Somaliland to reclaim its ceded  sovereignty. It would be a travesty and a tragedy of immense proportion to negate all the gains and the sacrifice that went into building a cohesive society worthy of those who lost limbs and lives if when all is said and done Somaliland simply substitutes one tyranny for another.

It is true that one cannot equate Dahir Rayale to Siyad Barre, but given enough time and resources one cannot dismiss the potential given his current propensity to rule by decrees, bend and if need be break the laws to serve his interest instead of the country, which is held hostage to the notion that if anyone resists his wishes, the cherished peace and the world as we know it will come to an abrupt end. In essence what the current administration is saying is that they are not willing to lose an argument whether political, social, or economical to anyone, leaving violence as the only option left to bring about change, and anyone willing to do so is responsible for endangering the peace.

In other words, they may be responsible in fostering the conditions that creates the problem in the first  place, but someone else is responsible for the ensuing ramifications and consequences. It is like a  master telling his slave that he can have peace and all the freedoms he wants as long as he is in  complete agreement with the masters rule which dictate that he shall have neither.

Democracy does not work if there are no checks and balances, and no one can argue that there is anything remotely resembling that in Somaliland where there is no independent Judiciary institution to speak of and the upper house (Guurti) has for all intended purposes morphed into a rubber stamping body for Mr. Rayale. The fact that the Guurti can extend the president's term is not disputed by anyone, what is also not in dispute is that the conditions that would trigger such an act have not been met. The problem is that the Constitution is quite clear on the conditions that would necessitate such a drastic move on their part (Dire circumstances are: a wide war, internal instability, serious natural disasters, such as earthquakes, epidemic diseases, (and) serious famines; and shall be determined and resolved by  the House of Elders on the proposal of the Council of Government) . Furthermore, nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the Guurti can set a new election date, which is what they did in their recent ruling.

Government incompetence, technical issues, or an administration unwilling to provide funds did not make the list as one of the conditions that would necessitate an extension of term for the president.

The bottom line is that politics without principles is what is being practiced here, and it seems to be the
only form of discourse we are familiar with and practice for as long as the concept of western style democracy has been introduced to us.

History has a way of teaching the same lessons to those unfortunate souls that do not learn from past mistakes, and this is where one should pause and pay attention, because we may be at a cross road once again. In 1969 when Siyad Barre came to power with a military coup, no one shed a tear for the democratically elected government that was illegally overthrown. The reason being, it was so corrupt and so far removed from the people that except for an elite few, it no longer touched the masses in any meaningful way, and was seen as an entity belonging to someone other than the man in the street. A military coup in the minds of many provided a change that potentially could bring a new balance to the system and allow ordinary folks to participate in their government and at the same time get rid of the elite and privileged society fostered by the previous electoral system responsible in stoking up tribalism to achieve its ends. The military junta got rid of the old guard, but replaced them with one of their own, and after 22 years of varying degree of terror managed to kill not only countless people but the essence of what it means to be Somali.

Nearly 20 years after the demise of the Siyad Barre, Somalis are still trying to fit a square peg in a round hole by stubbornly holding on to a pseudo democracy with a dab of tribalism added for good measure.
Mr. Rayale is not doing anything that the system in place is not allowing to do, and he is well on his way to create his own very little Rayaleland, but he is only a manifestation of the underlying larger problem of combining the worst of both worlds; indigenous tribalism and western style government without any checks or balances. Having one's clan member in government turned out not to bring true representation to the people, nor does it translate into a befeficial perk for the clan in question.

The question is when the day of reckoning comes and Al-Shabaab comes knocking with the promise of God’s law, will history repeat itself, or are people actually going to rally and defend their dictator?

Farole in Puntland seems to be a major improvement over Adde Musse, but nothing stops him from printing his own money the same way his predecessor did, and Sheikh Sharif in Mogadishu with 500 strong parliament, an international presence, local religious leaders and Al- Shabaab seems to have so many bosses he doesn' t know whether he is going or coming.

If none of the choices above are to your liking…….it is time to reinvent the wheel.