Somaliland: Rayale’s Delaying Tactics Frustrate The Opposition

Somaliland: Rayale's Delaying Tactics Frustrate The Opposition

HARGEISA, Somaliland (Somaliland Globe) - President Dahir Rayale has returned the commissioner nominees submitted by the opposition KUMLIYE party and the House of Elders to fill up the vacancies in the National Electoral Commission (NEC) following the resignation of all seven members of the commission.

"The president has no prerogative power to return the nominees as this is not provided for under the law," said the leader of KULMIYE party, Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud Silanyo. Nevertheless Silanyo whose nominee, Ilhan Mohammed Jama, was returned three times by the president finally threw in the towel and replaced her today with another nominee.

President Rayale had been engaged for the past two weeks in the screening of the commissioner nominees submitted by the House of Elders and the two opposition parties ahead of the Home Affairs Subcommittee of the parliament which is vested with the power to decide the clearance and ratification of nominees.

Meanwhile president Rayale is playing his cards close to his chest and has not publicly or privately disclosed to the local media to judge the eligibility and suitability of his nominees to sit on the NEC.  He was accused of "employing delaying tactics to hamper the formation of electoral commission" in an apparent attempt to delay the holding of the yet-to-be-scheduled presidential election.

The president has also returned the commissioner nominee submitted by the House of Elders after almost two weeks because of his failure to produce  evidence of criminal conviction which he said was recorded against the nominee.

The nominee, Hassan Saeed Yousuf, is a high profile Somaliland journalist, who was arrested fifteen times by successive Somaliland administrations and appeared, at least four times, before Hargeisa provincial court. However, there was no occasion at all when a criminal conviction was recorded against Mr. Yousuf.

Despite this, Rayale has officially written to the House of Elders yesterday, saying that the former editor-in-chief of the Somali language daily, Jamhuuriya, is "leaning toward KULMIYE party" but failed to produce the flimsiest evidence to back up his claims.

Shortly before the leaders of three main Somaliland's political parties put their signatures to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) brokered by western donor countries, Mr. Youseff was one of three renowned journalists appointed by the Umbrella Organisation of Professional Journalists in Somaliland for their objectivity and professionalism to mediate between the government and the opposition parties over the prevailing political stalemate at the time.

Yet again, in spite of the president's failure to produce even the flimsiest evidence to back up his claims the leadership of the House of Elder today replaced their nominees with another nominee "without questioning, in the first place, whether the president's claim was valid and even though he [the president] was acting beyond the bounds of his constitutional authority".

So far the donor countries that brokered the MOU are watching from the sidelines as Rayale dictates the terms of eligibility and suitability of nominees submitted by opposition parties and House of Elders while keeping the nation guessing with his choice of nominees.

It remains to be seen whether the donor countries will wield the big stick against Rayale if this persistent "delaying tactics" continue to resurface in future.

Somaliland Globe