Dahir Rayyale Kahin Will Win The Presidency!

               Waxa qoray: A. Mohamed Ali Hashi ‘Dhimbiil’                         

"Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more". - (Act III, Scene II), Julius Caesar – By William Shakespeare. 

This essay is dedicated to the memory of the second president of the republic of Somaliland, the late Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal for his lasting legacy: the constitution of this republic. May Allah rest his soul in peace. 

Somaliland is making history; this history is about the struggle of democracy in Somaliland.  This history is neither about the pursuit of power nor the personalization of politics that many in Africa and in the developing world are trying to change.  Somaliland is at the throes of something new and different; it is at the throes of creating a new dimension to politics; it is at the throes of creating the infrastructure or the political beginnings of what the political economy of Somaliland

will look like years to come.  In a word: Somaliland is undergoing foundational change. At the centre of this creation process is the basic and rudimentary agenda of giving the people of Somaliland a choice between a bona fide armed struggle leader, and an ordinary man who helped to build the peace in the country.  It is indeed two diametrically opposed world views that will be elected or defeated in the coming elections.  One view suggests to the people of Somaliland one single issue: experience.

The other view suggests another single issue, change.  Once we shred through all the haze and mist of promises, appeals, and the rising political temperature, when we get to the cold hard facts, these are the two issues confronting the electorate in Somaliland: experience or change.

These two concepts seem simple at close quarters, they seem rather nondescript, they seem rather blasé, and they [experience and change] seem not part of the political architecture in Somaliland.  In a landscape characterized by the pull of charisma, experience and name recognition, asking for change would condemn Somali Landers to another round of asking them to burden their shoulders with another load that may even be the one that broke the camels back. 

Somali Landers it seems, nowadays, just want to get on with life and reject anyone fostering on their collective will strange new ideas of change opposed to experience and leadership proven in the struggle for Somaliland. They do not want to be put between a rock and hard place, where they would have to choose between two people who have done much to consolidate what Somali Landers have today.

But such are the works of politics: the peoples right to choose in a secret ballot. I think it would be hard for anyone to propose a candidate other than Ahmed Mohamed Siilanyo, I think that if one were simply trying to discredit this important figure in the politics of Somaliland it would be the easy thing to do.  Everyone knows how to discredit another, yet, it would seem to me rather cheap and vile to accept the first three presidents of this country, and campaign on the message of “anyone but Siilanyo”!  This is a di-service to the dignity of this country and to the work that this politician done in the struggle for Somaliland.

Once one stands up as a person and allows another person the rights that they would want for themselves,  graciousness and decency – an central feature in the character of our people – then politics becomes politics and the issues of the people take centre stage.  Many of the politicians in

Somaliland who are trying to discredit this politician should simply stop because the people of Somaliland know this man inside out. They know his strengths and weakness; they know his virtue and his vice; they know in a word, because he is a son of the soil.  In political matters one ought to bring the decency and graciousness back to the vocabulary of our politics.  It is not cowardly to speak to the issues, it is not

effeminate to believe your agenda and passionately debate them in a public forum; politics ought not to be a blood sport, for no one  lacks the ability to damage and destroy,  building an erecting social and political pillars are quite another story. 

Graciousness and decency, without these in our political universe, the two pillars of this Republics struggle for democracy, we might as well fold the tent for I believe passionately when graciousness and decency are taken away from a people they are but empty shells, there naked to be seen in their grotesque cynicism.  I have said and will say again, the struggle was mounted because the dictator took away our graciousness and decency, I dare ask what the political basis of the struggle was? 

Was it not to return graciousness and decency back from the wasteland and exile?  Those who read history and Somali history in particular ought to stop feigning a new dementia, or the new amnesia.

One is mandated by the nature of politics to support a particular party and a particular leader who symbolizes one’s political understanding of things and one’s commitment to a thing that is now rare among our politicians: principal.  Somaliland has always had its political tensions; many have been described by other commentators of the political condition in Somaliland, they constitute distinct phases in the history of our country. 

One period is the tension between the history of the union between Somaliland and Somalia; that is, the blunder of irredentism symbolized by Hassan Keid and his officers’ insurrection against the union. 

Another is the coming of the SNM and its destruction of tyranny.  Another is the tensions in the Somali National Movement itself between the military wings and the civilian wings of the organization, symbolized by

the bouts of civil war in Somaliland.  Another is the current tension between the civilian elite and ordinary Somali Landers as we move towards our democratic dispensation. I believe that this issue is at the heart of our future, because, democracy and the rule of law tend to be blind, dispensing legalize and structure without any commitment to a personality that, may, in the eyes of the people be the right man at

the right time in a specific historical moment.  I dare say, and I am student of books, I have yet to see constitutions make blunders that are vast.

I say ordinary Somali Landers and the civilian elite because of the constitution.  History is ironic, it has a way of twisting the winds of change in an instant through fortune or fate and indeed turn politics topsy-turvy.

This president was elected through the constitution and not provided for in the constitution because the constitution is not a soup kitchen to provide indigenes with hot soup! Pundits from the opposition with the benefit of the constitution at their disposal suggest that the “current president’s position was provided for under the constitution” Yes, it is provided for, however, who provided for this under the constitution? Is it the heavens or the people of this republic who ratified the constitution and said ‘let it be and it was so?  Were the 97% of the people standing in hot sun making a mistake or is it our elitist perversions that label ourselves as educated yet without Mark Twains warning of “education consists mainly in what we have unlearned”! Fuddling on the issue just wont do, setting obstacles on the road of a legitimate and I believe in our context – revolutionary document – is an affront to the aspirations of these people of this country.  But this is to anticipate.

What then is this tension that has so astonished these civilian elite – I dare say dear gentle reader there are elites in the country, contrary to what pundits tell you –  into shock and dismay, ?  Many in the opposition actually believe that the current president is unworthy of the station afforded him by the constitution.  They point to all soughts of things, education, culture, knowledge, - privately they must be dazed and traumatized, consider for a moment a recognized Somaliland and a state visit to Great Britain by our president they say! Buckingham palace and Dahir Rayyale?!

The opposition has pointed to these issues; they have even asked that a Minister in the cabinet should take over, embarrassed as they are over the current president.   They even point to his rather boorish and churlish style of leadership.  Our leader in the opposition has said many times, the president does not understand that the government regularly calls the opposition to solicit its views on urgent matters national importance.  He does not know that Senegal and Gabon are thousands of miles apart and it is the Gambia of the formerly Sir Dauda Jaware first President of that tiny country, that was once federated with Senegal to be called the Senegambia.

How is this man going to get recognition for this country when his geography is in the pits?  The honorable leader of the opposition has called on the government to debate the issues, to prod the legislature to resolve agreed upon funding agreements on political parties, and so on and so on….   There are in a word much that is to be said, much that needs to be done, and much that the parliament and the judiciary, who have as much responsibly as the executive, in committing to the process.  The Electoral Commission recently has, to its credit, given assurances on filling these loopholes. But this is also to anticipate.

These debates from the opposition are why we have an opposition, for the health of politics and indeed for the rights of dissent and democracy.  I argue however that, distaste for the presidency, extended to the political infrastructure that brought him there is wrongheaded and ruins the attempts at building a political process. For once you find a constitutionally elected leader unworthy of the position, it is not hard to imagine nor hard to stretch the argument to the constitution itself! The contempt then, and that is what it is, finally being held for the constitution.  For, if it is the constitution that produced this – innovative and strange circumstance – then something must be wrong with the constitution.  It is not hard to make the connection.  One erstwhile commentator on human rights, and a person of towering integrity, and of the highest personal credentials – who I dis-agree with on the issues - recently made the same mistake about what exactly this constitution is all about by suggesting that the Guurti simply “placed” this president into this office. 

Answering the harder question of why, escaped the commentary of this human rights commentator, the Guurti simply did what they were instructed to do by the constitution.  Can you imagine what would have happened to this country had the constitution not been adhered to?  

Many in the opposition are principled people not interested in the Beelo analysis of the country,  I know many of them and they passionately believe in their man. I believe in the constitution and then support the man as a symbol of change.  I believe in the process more than the man, I believe in building for change rather than sitting on the comfortable chair of experience.  In a word I believe that these two new candidates, in the next five years, will bring change to the country with help of this countrie’s intelligencia and its educated elite.  I believe that the president and his running mate will, with the help of our traditional leaders solve the problem of Sool and involve the people of that province into the affairs of this country. 

I believe that that ordinary Somali Landers see in this president their sons and daughters, they see an ordinary person who legally came to office and thus they in turn can dream, just like American children that they also can become the President of Somaliland in the future whatever their clan, their gender, their station in life, and their material station in life.  These things I believe in, I may be wrong, I my be an idealist, I may see things that are not there, but I have a right to believe in what I believe; because young men and women like me; who look like me; talk like me; come from the loins of the people like me; fell in the battle of Somaliland so that I can freely write about my beliefs.

I care about my country and I care about its future.  Our commitment must be about decency, graciousness, and to those young men and women in the Somali National Movement who fell in the battle for Somaliland. 

They, the brave, have my eternal gratitude.

Long Live Democracy!  Long Live Somaliland!

A. Mohamed Ali Hashi ‘Dhimbiil’                               

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