Somaliland: Riyale is anxious about April 6
HARGEISA (SomalilandGlobe) — The Riyale administration is nervously awaiting for a peaceful passage of the day when his term in office expires on April 6.
The administration is clearly nervous about the growing backlash from the public after forcing a Guurti bill to illegally extend his term in office for a second time. Instead of legally winning another five year re-election, his administration which is said to be gloomy at best about its chances to win a free and fair elections, was looking for ways to extend its stay in office perhaps by up to two years. In March 28 meeting the Guurti extended his term by six months, even though that extension is clearly unconstitutional.
Nevertheless, that extension looks likely to fail due to the growing chorus of voices saying that they will not recognize it including the two opposition political parties. The opposition accepted the previous one-year extension which is going to expire in less than a week on Monday, April 6.
Riyale's ministers were restless in the past few days holding press conferences which are being aired around the clock by the government controlled media, in which they accuse the opposition of instigating violence while at the same time threatening to take "serious unspecified measures" against their leaders.
The government controlled media has also been broadcasting staged interviews with elders who the administration says represent various communities. These elders, who in the interviews are airing their "support" for the extension, are known to be individuals who are on the government payroll and have no clout within the communities.
Governors across the country were ordered to hold community meetings with chiefs and sultans affiliated with the administration to shore up support for the extension and warn them from listening to "those" who are "endangering the peace", a reference to the opposition's call to reject of the extension.
Reliable sources say Riyale held a private meeting among key ministers including the finance Minister Awil and the Interior Minister Cirro, to forge a strategy to counter the growing backlash from the public, which they believe is also swelling the ranks of the opposition.
Amid the the growing anger with his administration, Riyale knows he has even less support for an extension. But among the decisions taken at the meeting was the use of a security based theme to sway the public to its side by fully utilizing the government controlled media as well as the government officials around the country.
According to our sources the government will step up its campaign to paint the main opposition party, KULMIYE, many of whose members were veteran leaders of the former SNM guerrilla organization, as hawks who were responsible for the civil wars and are a danger to the peace. This assertion, while a stretch of the facts, may have won Riyale some votes in 2003 from a war weary public, but is unlikely to change the public anger and perception of this administration's repeated bending of the rule for its own desire to stay in power.
Just days after the meeting, various ministers held the usual press conferences declaring the Riyale administration as the guarantor of the peace while accusing the opposition of fermenting instability. Along with that message the deputy minister of Justice went even further, threatening that "any attempted coup" will be faced with extreme punishment including "execution". A message that was widely interpreted as the most aggressive attempt yet to intimidate the public into submission. This latest message from the administration is translated as desperate measure to blackmail the public. The opposition spokesman said "this is a clear sign to put the public on notice that Riyale is willing to take unprecedented actions to cling on to power by any means, including political executions rather than relinquishing the power peacefully".
In response to the recent administration threats, another members of the opposition KULMIYE party said "Are we going to see a repeat of the same events that took place last April? Is the administration going to start exploding bombs like it did before and accuse us of being behind it?". He was referring to April 2008 when Cirro, the Minister of Interior, accused KULMIYE party of being behind an explosion that occurred in an empty room at the building housing the Guurti. Even though around that time the government had imposed night-time curfews and large number of army and police were deployed around Hargeisa, several mysterious explosions were heard at night time in the city. Those explosions, which coincided with the political tensions surrounding the previous one-year extension of Riyale's term of office, mysteriously started and suddenly stopped as soon as the administration got what it wanted. The opposition was adamant that Riyale administration orchestrated the explosions and were clearly meant to create an atmosphere of fear among the residents of the city. The opposition at the time called for an independent committee to investigate the explosions. The administration ignored those calls and did not itself start investigations to counter the widespread believe that it was behind the explosions.
Since all those intimidations, threats and the name calling of the opposition parties leaders were used in past, they appear to bear little fruit this time around. Instead Riyale is likely to further erode any respect that he had left from the public.
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