Somaliland presidential election, 2003

In the presidential elections in Somaliland on 14 April 2003 the President of the de facto independent Somaliland was chosen ( northern Somalia). In this case, the incumbent President Dahir Kahin Riyale sat by the party UDUB with 42.08 % of the vote against very tight Ahmed Mohammed Silanyo of the Kulmiye Mahamoud Party with 42.07 % through. The candidate Faysal Ali Warabe of the UCID reached 15.85% share of the vote.

It was the first time since the declaration of independence of Somaliland in 1991, that the president and vice president were elected democratically; previously had meetings of clan elders and the elders later appointed governments as the upper house of Parliament appointed by the clans and a decision on their tenure.

Conduct of elections

After the death of President Mohammed Haji Ibrahim Egal in May 2002, the former Vice President Dahir Kahin Riyale had taken in accordance with the Constitution, the presidency.

The presidential elections were originally supposed to take place a month before the expiry of his term of office in February 2003. However, they were postponed to April and the tenure of the government was this extended by three months because the voter registration was insufficiently advanced. The parliamentary elections were supposed to be held together with the presidential elections, but were postponed due to differences due to the definition of the constituencies and the distribution of parliamentary seats by region relevant electoral laws were not adopted in time. They would be held in 2005.

The government of Somaliland was on the Electoral Commission NEC 1 million U.S. dollars to finance the elections at various European donor countries provided technical assistance and financed education programs for voters.

Programmatically, the three parties antretenden not significantly different from each other, especially since all supported the independence of Somaliland and a liberal economic system. So were ultimately rather the personality of the candidates and their clan affiliation decision criteria for voters. The UDUB particularly stressed their government experience and the success of their previous governments. Kulmiye promised in their campaign of "change " (Change), a more efficient government and greater participation for women. UCID spoke particularly to younger voters by introduced stronger welfare state elements with increased investment in education and health and a stronger role for women in view.

There were allegations that the UDUB used its position as the existing government party by 've used for their election campaign vehicles of the Government or "bought" voters have by issued before the elections, new Somaliland Shilling. The opposition Kulmiye Party shall have in turn will invest at least as much in their campaign, where they drew its funding from donations from the Somaliland Diaspora and of businessmen.

International election observers criticized some irregularities - so the poor organization of some polling stations and multiple voting, as observed in the cities of Hargeisa and Burao - but generally gave a positive assessment of these elections.

Result

From 488 543 votes UDUB won with Dahir Kahin Riyale 205 595 ( 42.08 % ), which was very slightly ahead of Silanyo of Kulmiye with 205 515 votes ( 42.07 %), which resulted in four of the six regions. The UCID stood at 15.85% share of the vote Warabe is far ahead of third place.

The closeness of the result with just 80 votes difference in favor of UDUB cared for discussion, especially since they had generally expected rather a victory of the Kulmiye party. There were smaller protests in Burao and Gabiley, more protests were suppressed by the imposition of emergency laws. Supporters of Silanyo worked out that this shall not accept or even form a rival government defeat. Silanyo waived out, however, to do this or the government and the Election Commission to accuse openly, and referred to Mogadishu / Southern Somalia, where the armed warlord Aidid and Ali Mahdi for the presidency had contributed significantly to the civil war in Somalia.

However, Kulmiye turned to the Supreme Court ( Supreme Court ) so that this check the results. After the court UDUB, Kulmiye and the electoral commission had listened for three days, it announced on May 11 the victory of UDUB by a margin of 214 votes. On May 16, Dahir Riyale Kahin was introduced to his new term of office. Kulmiye initially presented - as did some somaliländische media for some time - the independence of the courts of the government in question, but accepted after three weeks of negotiations by clan elders defeat.

Swell

• Mark Bradbury: Becoming Somaliland, 2008, ISBN 978-1847013101 (p. 190-195 )
• Report on the parliamentary elections in 2005, the International Republican Institute, with results tables to the presidential elections 2003 ( PDF; 429 kB)