Year, as it is argued, is a very short time in politics. A week, conversely, as everyone has heard, is a long time in politics.
Former UK prime minister, Harold Wilson, made the phrase “A week is a long time in politics”, during one of the UK’s seemingly never-ending political crises in the year 1964. What did Harold Wilson mean by that?
What Harold Wilson meant by that phrase
Is that the position of a political party can drastically change within the course of a single week.
An experience indicative of what Harold Wilson warned 58 years ago has happened today in Somaliland, a poor country that indeed requires leaders who should have the ability to show the enemy that neither politics nor power could stop Somaliland from moving forward.
As we have heard, Colonel Muse Biixi has intentionally ruined the negotiation about the contentious conflict over holding Somaliland’s 2022 presidential election on its due date. Is that too neat to be clear?
How do you respond to this shocking news as a citizen is up to you. But just imagine what could happen when what holds societies together crumbles and comes to an end all of a sudden. Imagine what could happen when the system that is responsible to maintain law and order turns into armed militias warring against each other.
Somalis have experienced the horrors of lawlessness and mayhem; situations in which megalomania just divided people into two factions, of which one faction sided with the rulig regime and fought along with it, while the other faction turned into rebellion, waging war against the regime and its alliances.
When myopia to rebel grips Somaliland society time and time again, what would it acquire, and whom would it identify as its adversary?
This is not an exchange of obscure questions and obtuse answers in the morning. Instead these are questions that Somaliland MPs like honorable Maxamed Abiib can only answer with confidence and conviction
Back to what actually boils Somaliland local political affairs today, let me begin with confidence and command in my conviction by saying that time-consuming political conflict has been the lifeblood of Somaliland democracy’s thriving theatre, since Colonel Muse Biixi rose to power. What, according to you, is the principle cause of Somaliland’s recurrent political conflict?
Political conflicts and crises are often accompanied by narratives, stances and mindsets that stress the righteousness of the cause and the danger of deviation from it.
That indicates the grounds conflicts should have. So what grounds in the arguments of the conflicting parties? What do the disputing sides, the incumbent administration and opposition parties, ground on their arguments in the first place? Which party can let the matter stand in court, if the conflict resolution requires legitimacy?
Besides this people want to know: The party whose stance in the conflict can trigger war and the one whose mindset stresses the righteousness of the cause and the danger
of defiation from it?
The majority of Somaliland lawyers clearly stated several times in the past that there are no legal grounds that the current administration can postpone the presidential election and hold new parties election ahead of the election in conflict. The foundation of this statement by Somaliland lawyers is based on the fact that the power to enforce, decide and set an election date doesn’t sit in the office of judicial branch. A bill that is processed and passed by the MPs is the only law that can set the date any election is to be held and the effective date of all other attachments as well.
In a strange, almost inexplicable manner,
the head of the executive branch has openly distorted the remarks made by the chief of justices on whether it was the time to open new political parties.
Notably one remark was absolutely judgmental, for the simple reason that courts don’t make laws. They only interpret laws, rules and regulations, according to the constitution, whenever conflicting views over a certain bill arise.
In law, interpretation is too difficult for all ignorats to understand, consultancy is crucial and everything is not fluid, if the Colonels can understand that.
Nothing caused and quickened the current political conflict that is between the incumbent administration and opposition parties better than the issue of Somaliland’s presidential election date.
As we are aware, every presidential election usually sets the stage for what tricks to play in order to make excuses for prolonging the term to stay in office. Why? Consider this carefully!
Once incumbent administration starts measuring the time left for actual governance, the calendar shrinks, giving the signal that the past years have even disappeared in a flash.
Interestingly, the calendar that began to shrink and the years that passed like a flash does not, in somehow or the other, reveal the fact that a second term in office is always much harder than the first.
First, governments can provide a hope to
sell to their people when they do what they promised to do. For doing the things that are in the list-to-do doubles the mandate and discovers expectations. That is, fulfillment is where the hope to sell to communities arise from.
Second, as history is always our guide, presidents who are successfully re-elected for a second term are those that are more likely to have done a lot of good things for their countries in their first term, making their chances to win second term even more hopeful by expectations than the first term.
In politics, achievements are illustrative, arrogance is inhuman, diligence is
dedication and commitment is critical in
social contract. What is else is more
important than keeping promise?
The question is whether Muse Biixi has shown any sincere interest to improve Somaliland socially, economically and politically. If the answer is affairmative, how did Muse and his administration respond to the challenges Somaliland faced for the last four years?
Covid-19 and drought were on no one’s horizon. These were natural disasters. But the fire that ruined out Waaheen market to ashes might be on someone’s agenda.
Covid-19 was an economic crisis wrapped in medical dread, generating horrific memories, visceral images, and existential fears. How did Somaliland authorities respond to control and contain Covid-19 pandamic?
To shorten the answer for the above question, the way in which Covid-19 was handled was professionally disgusting. There were no tough measures to contain or control the pandamic. The administration did not even provide people with the masks that have been donated by Worldtemitt, leave alone to put the donations from Telesom and Dahabshiil in where the danger of negligence effidently caused casualties.
What happened to Waaheen Market was a disaster that history will not allow us to forget. The real cause of the fire that caught Waaheen market, Hargeisa’s biggest commercial hub, still remains as unresolved misery. If there were no human involvement, why Somaliland authorities didn’t investigate the real cause of the disaster? If not, why
not?
And what about Somaliland infrastructure? Does it encourage or disencourage us when the rubber of our cars hits the road? Did Colonel Muse and his adminintration do anything about Somaliland infrastructure, which is where progress of every country is measured? The answer is the current administrion nevet even maintained Hargeisa’s main road.
Normally, a government is defined by what
it does for its people; oppositions are measured by what they promise to do. It is wrong to believe that the second is easier than the first. The promise must be credible.
Time will tell what the opposition will do for the people. We are obliged to wait for this to come. The only thing we can tell and talk about at this moment is why what Muse Biixi and his administration collectively did to Somaliland people is always questionanlbe?
If the past years disappeared in a flash, the next years will be even shorter. The error is not elementary when you think that only fight, fight, fight can fool and fail your foe
By:Jamafalaag
Hargeisa, Somaĺiland
