Delayed Somaliland polls threaten stability: HRW

By Jack Kimball

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A delay in Somaliland's presidential poll threatens the breakaway enclave's stability and democratic credentials, and the government continues to ignore its own laws, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday.

Somaliland has enjoyed relative peace compared with other parts of Somalia since the Horn of Africa nation plunged into anarchy in 1991. It has held elections before, but officials say new polls have been put off since 2007 due to technical issues.

"Somaliland has spent 18 years trying to build stability and democracy, but all its gains are at risk if the government continues to undermine the rule of law," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director for the U.S.-based group.

"The electoral crisis has laid bare the need to create functioning government institutions that will respect human rights," she said in a statement.

Somaliland's government said the report was an unfair slur.

Mohamed-Aar Abdillahi Mohamed, an ambassador at large for the foreign ministry, told Reuters by telephone that a non-governmental organisation run by an American man had received $10 million in donor funds to help organise the election but failed to provide a proper electoral register.

"They came up with sub-standard software," he said.

That was why the original election was put off, and then, by a decision of the upper house of parliament, a new date was fixed for later this year, he said. "The rule of law has been followed. They are trying to find a scapegoat."

The polls are seen as a test for the former British protectorate, which has been clamouring for international recognition since declaring independence after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown.

The enclave in northwest Somalia is governed by an opposition-led house of representatives elected directly by the people and the upper house, or Guurti, consisting of traditional elders representing different clans and sub-clans.

The rights group said that President Dahir Riyale Kahin has used the Guurti to extend his rule beyond its limit and that claims the poll was delayed for issues like inadequate voter registration and planning time were "disingenuous".

"A further delay of elections, now slated for September 2009, could prove disastrous for democratic rule in Somaliland," the group said in a 56-page report entitled "Hostages to Peace".

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Ambassador-at-large Mohamed said Somaliland had one of the best democratic performances in Africa. "Somaliland has a better record than any other country in the Horn of Africa," he said.

But HRW said that Riyale's administration was flagrantly acting outside laws established by the constitution and restricting civil society and the media.

"The most important caveat to everything Somaliland has achieved -- and the one thing that threatens those gains in the short term -- is the presidency's consistent and brazen refusal to abide by the rule of law," the group said.

"Perhaps the most glaring example of the government's extralegal practises is its use of security committees to usurp the role of the courts."

The committees, comprising of government officials and security officers, flout due process and routinely sentence suspects en masse, it said.

Riyale, who was in Siad Barre's security apparatus, won the presidency in 2003 in the first multi-party elections.

Somaliland was briefly independent in the 1960s, but then chose to join the rest of Somalia. Its capital, Hargeisa, was devastated in the 1980s when the then dictator battled an insurgent group there.

Since 1991, the region -- about the size of England and Wales -- has failed to gain recognition, which some analysts say is due to fears that rewriting colonial borders may open a Pandora's Box of other secession claims.