Donors' Meeting Set to Decide Fate of Somaliland Presidential Election
According to the Somaliland daily newspaper HAATUF, the UK ambassador to Ethiopia and Swedish Ambassador to Kenya are expected to arrive in Somaliland today to deliver a stern message to President Dahir Rayale Kahin for his failure to implement the long-awaited replacement of at least two members of Somaliland's National Electoral Commission (NEC) whom they consider to be "grossly incompetent and corrupt" and cannot be trusted to run the upcoming presidential election. Donors are also concerned that some of the terms and conditions relating to the provision of financial assistance to Somaliland's democratization and electoral process had not been fully implemented in order to authorise the release of funding.
Up until now it is not clear however whether the Nairobi based donor representatives will stick to their guns and freeze the funding altogether because of the failure of Rayale's government to meet a key demand regarding the replacement of two electoral commissioners or whether they will simply waive these conditions and release the funding for the presidential election to go ahead.
The ambassadors will have a meeting with president Rayale and his ministers, leaders of the opposition parties and the Speakers of the two Houses of Parliament to inform them about their demands as well as the final decision regarding the funding of electoral process in Somaliland.
The donors who initially insisted on the complete replacement of all incumbent electoral commissioners toned down their demands to two members namely the chairman of the NEC, Jama Mohamoud Omar and his deputy, Ali Bikalo.
President Rayale however insisted all along he would not replace any of the commissioners unless they tendered their resignations on their own accord.
Rayale also wants the two commissioners to remain on the NEC board if and when they resign from their current posts. On other hand, the donors insist on the complete expulsion of these men from the NEC.
Sources say that Jerry McCain, the regional director for Eastern and Central Africa of INTERPEACE, the agency representing the donor countries in Somaliland, will attend and participate in the meeting along with the ambassadors of the UK and Sweden.
If president Rayale fails to change his mind to replace these two commissioners in the following few days the prospect of the forthcoming Somaliland presidential election happening on 27 September as planned is almost nil, triggering almost certainly fresh accusations and counter accusations of who is to blame on the failure, analysts fear.
Although the overwhelming majority of the Somaliland public firmly believes that Rayale's government is throwing all sorts of obstacles in the way of stopping the presidential election in its tracks yet there are significant minority who are pointing fingers at INTERPEACE for interfering in the internal affairs of the country.
Somalilanders are getting increasingly worried about the repercussions of the failure of the presidential election to take place as scheduled and the subsequent uncertainty of the future of Somaliland if Dahir Rayale is granted another presidential term extension.
Donors say it is essential that there should be an accountability and transparency so that their taxpayers know where their money is spent and that it is being used effectively to advance democracy in Somaliland.
Donors believe that the chairman of the NEC and his deputy are incapable to run the forthcoming presidential election and that if they are left to cling on to their current posts and the election goes ahead as planned the outcome of the presidential election might lead to a dispute resulting in a post-election violence similar to the one that ocurred in Kenya.
So far, Rayale's position is very clear. He refuses to budge from his position but whether the donors will give ground on this or not remains to be seen.
Somaliland Globe
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