SOMALILAND:Creating The Conditions For Free And Fair Election

Creating The Conditions For Free And Fair Election In Somaliland: Challenges And Obstacles

Hargeisa, 8 May 2009 (Somalilandpress) - The Somaliland Election commission postponed the presidential elections scheduled for March 29 2009 to May 31. The Somaliland's Council of Eldersextended the delay to October 2009, thereby effectively directing the President and the Election Commission to act accordingly. The Council of Elders had previously postponed the election for six months in 2008 and for a year in the 2002 presidential elections. The mediated agreement between the parties may have defused the immediate crisis but it does not solve all of the obstacles and challenges to fair and free elections. The following questions need to be resolved in order in order to create the conditions for free and fair elections, thereby assuring the legitimacy and acceptance of the outcome the elections.

A. What are the obstacles to holding timely elections?

The Government and the Election Commission had five years to plan the election. The Council of Elders did not act to pre-empt the delays in the holding of the elections. The repeated postponements of the presidential elections suggest lack of accountability and the absence of a legal mechanism to ensure timely holding of the election. Indeed, the exceptional emergency power of the Council of Elders to extend the tenure of the President may have created disincentives to plan and hold the elections in a timely manner.

Recommendation 1: Enact legally binding schedule of all elections

a) The electoral law and regulations shall establish the dates and bench marks for presidential, parliamentary and local government elections.
b) The constitution should be accordingly modified to make provisions for appointing acting president and care-taker government, if elections can not be held. The tenure and powers of the caretaker government shall be established by law.

B. Is voter registration necessary to free and fair elections?

The Election Commission has introduced a high-tech biometric based voter registration and identification system with financial support of the donor countries and technical support of Interpeace, a Geneva based international nongovernmental organization, and consulting subcontractors of Interpeace in India, who manage the voter registration server.

Somaliland does not have a system of vital registration to verify citizenship, identity and age of potential voters. All of these requirements had to be verified during the registration process. The local partisans of the political parties in their campaign to register their supporters presented the voter registration as a key factor both in the party's performance in the election and in the allocation of parliamentary seats in future elections, thereby encouraging under age and multiple registrations of voters.

The preliminary counts of registered voters are more than two times the total number of the voters in the last presidential elections. Almost half of the registered voters do not have corresponding biometric data. Accurate detection of under age and multiple registrations is therefore questionable. Modifications and corrections of the voter registration rolls is likely to undermine the credibility of the election process and its outcome. Similarly, challenges of voters with registered cards during the voting will also be difficult to resolve and are likely to cause delays and disruptions or even violence.

Registration in parts of the eastern seven districts did not take place. Significant numbers of the Somaliland electorate also reside in communities and areas across the border in Ethiopia. The deficiencies in the coverage of the registration process in some districts and under-age and multiple registration of voters in others will distort the outcome of elections, especially if the elections are closely contested as has been the experience with past elections.

Recommendation 2: Provide assurance of the operability and functionality of the voter registration system

a) The commission and its donors and partners should assess the voter registration system and provide assurance of its operability and functionality.
b) The registration system should be suspended if its functionality and operability can not be reasonably assured. The elections should then be conducted in accordance with the rules and procedures of the last presidential elections. The Commission should then consult with the political parties to schedule a new election date.

C. What can be done to build confidence in the integrity of the current election process?

Somaliland held presidential, parliamentary and local government elections. All of these elections were held without voter registration system. In the 2003 presidential elections, disputes were based on incomplete documentation of the results of the election in some polling stations and irregularities in the recording of the disputed ballots after their review and resolution by the representative of the parties and election officials.

Because of the closeness of the votes, the outcome of the entire election in the final analysis was decided as a result of the Commissions decisions on contested ballots and the exclusion of the ballots of small number of polling stations. The Council of Elders and the Supreme Court endorsed the decisions of the Election Commission in order to prevent a political crisis.

Recommendation 3: Establish procedures for oversight of the election process and verification of the results

a) The Council of Elders should form an Ad-Hoc oversight committee under its chairmanship. The committee will include the representatives of the three parties and the Election Commission. The Committee will serve as a forum for open and transparent deliberations and recommend guidelines and procedures for ensuring the fairness and integrity of all aspects of the election process.

b) The Election Commission should formalize the procedures for verifying the election results.

D. How can the electoral system be structured to bring about governing majorities while creating opportunities for dynamic opposition?

Somaliland has yet to complete the transition from clan-based selection of officials to multi-party election of officials. The membership and voting pattern in the Council of Elders are both clan-based as are the constituencies of the political parties. The disputes over the registration and delays in holding the elections have deepened the political distrust and rivalries, which increase the risk of election violence and post-election upheavals and undermine Somaliland's democratization and its international reputation.

Recommendation 4: The election laws and regulations should be amended to discourage monopolistic tendencies in the current party system and encourage the parties and candidates for election to build broad-based coalitions. The election laws and party registration regulation should be revised to stipulate that:

a. Political parties can be formed six months before scheduled elections.
b. Any party that gains 20% or more of the vote in one of the six original regions during the elections will qualify for seats in the local government council.
c. Parties that gain 10% of the total national vote in the parliamentary elections will qualify for seats in parliament.
d. The two parties with the highest votes in the elections immediately preceding the presidential elections will field candidates for the presidential election.

Recommendation 5: Reset the voter registration process as a vital registration system.

b) The registration system should be reset and its procedures reformulated as a system of vital registration that records births, marriages and deaths.
c) The offices responsible for the vital registration should establish procedures for verifying citizenship and issuing identity papers, which will be the basis of the voter registration system.

Written by:
Dr. Mohamud A. Jama