Political Process Of Somaliland After The Barre Era

Somaliland is located in the northwest of Somalia. Since the downfall of the Barre's regime, Somaliland experiences a totally different political development routine compared with other parts of Somalia. Its political development process can be divided into two stages. In the first stage, the political order was built by Somaliland in 1991-1997, and two civil wars have occurred in 1992 and 1994-1996. After the first civil war in 1992, the dispute about the ownership of resources among clans in Somalia was resolved well. Meanwhile, Somaliland realized that the political basis lied in clans and the importance of distribution of uniform political and economical power among every clans. Thus, the Borama meeting was convened in 1993 to solve the problem of the political and economic disputation in Issaq clan. And the meeting is the watershed in the process of political system development in Somaliland, in which the Beel system was established,and the problem of national reconciliation, state security and the conformation of political system were dissolved. After the 1994-1996 civil war, the government of Somaliland enhanced its control to clan society under the leadship of Egal president. In the Hargeysa meeting which was hold in 1996-1997, many agreements were reached as follows, increasing the seat at congress for opposition factions and minority clans, getting through the Constitution of transition, making sure the multi-party election as the substitute to Beel system gradually. All of these contributed to the division of power and political institutionalization.In the second stage, Somaliland's democratization has began since 1997. Firstly, Egal president achieved the concentration of power at some extent and weakened the authority of Gurrti by the use of flexible political strategies. He enforced the constitution and accelerated the transition from clan representation to multi-party election as well. Second, following the path of politics confirmed by Egal, Kahin president strived to expand political participation and established national electoral council in order to regulate the process of election. During his tenure, the transiton of Somaliland's political system got initial success as a result of the local election in 2002 and the three parties. Further more, after the political practice of the president election in 2003 and parliament election in 2005, the electoral system and the democracy were improved.Thirdly, since Silanyo hold the post of president in 2010, he had continued to promote democracy and got some achievements in the local election in 2012. The political culture was initially attained.Somaliland has set up the multi-party and parliamentary democracy after more than 20 years development, achieving the political stability relatively and the gradual political institutionalization. However, there are still some issues awaiting to be solved for Somaliland's government, such as the disputation of border with Puntland, the finite political participation for woman and minority clan and generation shift for Gurrti. All in all, the government should adjust its domestic and foreign policies gradually to promote democracy.