Overview of Somaliland’s democratic journey
Somaliland has held six successful democratic elections, including three presidential elections (in April 2003, June 2010 and November 2017), one parliamentary election (in September 2005) and two local council elections (in December 2002 and November 2012). All aforementioned elections were conducted in a peaceful and inclusive manner, a very rare occurrence in this volatile Horn of Africa region, which is overwhelmingly dominated by long-sitting, undemocratic and authoritarian leaders.Beyond that, in 2016, Somaliland conducted the most advanced voter registration processes in Africa, according to Abdikadir Iman Warsame, the former Chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) of Somaliland, in which an iris-based biometric system was used for one of the first times anywhere in the world. Although Somaliland has been exercising multiparty democracy for almost 18 years now, it has in many ways failed to institutionalize this system. Of the several major setbacks and shortcomings of the democratic process, one of the most serious and intractable is repeated election delays, in which extensions are granted to the term periods of Somaliland’s representative institutions.Such delays have occurred at all levels of government, from the executive and legislative to the local.
