Somaliland may be the most stable, tranquil, and smoothest functioning democracy that officially does not exist. Its 2010 presidential election saw the peaceful replacement of the incumbent, Dahir Riyale Kahin, with a member of one of the legislature’s two effective opposition parties. The streets are relatively safe, the navy is chalked full of internationally accredited officers, and the nation’s economy is experiencing a tourism Renaissance. Perhaps most importantly, Somaliland has largely avoided the anarchical chaos that has engulfed the southern stretches of the nation for decades. Yet, while Somaliland has de facto operated as and claimed to be an independent state since 1991, having little or nothing to gain from Somalia’s internationally recognized and completely impotent government in Mogadishu, it has failed to garner official recognition from even a single foreign nation.
Somaliland’s situation is not unique within Somalia. At the peak of the Horn, to the east of Somaliland, but to the north of the war-torn southern stretches of the nation, sits the autonomous state of Puntland. Like Somaliland, Puntland, has existed in a state of de facto, yet unrecognized independence for decades. Mired in this status of diplomatic limbo, Puntland’s government has provided internal security, public transportation, a rapidly expanding, although still primitive school system, and even a coast guard that fights piracy alongside NATO in the Gulf of Aden. From a political standpoint, Puntland has seen five successful transitions in presidential power over the last decade which have included successful bids by challenger candidates and no notable civil unrest within the last decade; thus, it’s hard to dispute that Puntland was operating well within the realm of reason when, earlier in 2011, it rejected the Transitional Federal Government as its legitimate international representative.
These governments of Somaliland and Puntland are to be cherished. The existence of functioning, medium capacity democracies in the impoverished stretches of Muslim, sub-Saharan Africa, is both incredibly fortunate and remarkably rare, an anomaly that stands in stark contrast with the often nepotistic, vile, and inept regimes of that region, including the TFG itself. To maintain perspective, there are problems with these de facto, unrecognized governments in Somalia: corruption, as in all impoverished nations, remains an issue, raising taxes from the internal population has proved difficult for both autonomous states, and women are severely underrepresented. Furthermore, despite constitutional decrees against it, clan politics is often pervasive, especially in Somaliland. However, its official alternative, the TFG, is a government locked in petty political feuds, a government which has historically failed defend even the capital of its supposed republic, and whose most pivotal legislative decision was extending the term of its own parliament for three years until 2014. Compared to the lumbering piece of political deadweight that is the TFG, the autonomous governments of Puntland and Somaliland seem more than qualified to handle their own fate.
Many factions within Somalia already concede this point. Just recently, the prime minister of the Transitional Federal Government, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, admitted that he has no objection to modern-day Somliland secessionism. In the district of Jubaland in the country’s wild southwest, a region that wavers between TFG and Al-Shabaab control, a civilian secular government has recently been formed explicitly in the model of Puntland and Somaliland as a means to tackle the security and social issues that the TFG itself is incapable of handling. Thus, Somalis already recognize the value of its functioning regional governments as the rightful and most efficient arbiters of civil society. They realize that the governments of Puntland and Somaliland, and to a lesser extent, other regionally legitimated governments, have taken better care of their citizens than the mess that is the TFG. Perhaps, then, it’s time then for the international community to stop unconditionally accommodating the squabbling parliamentary debate club in Mogadishu and to finally formalize relations with the functioning regional governments of Somalia.
Photo credit: economist.com