After a week of discussions, the three national political parties of Somaliland (KULMIYE, UCID and Waddani) have finally signed a 3 point agreement on the issue concerning to the allocations of the seats in the House of Representatives to the regions.
In the first provision of their signed agreement, the parties agreed to return the conflicted issue related to the allocations of the seats of the MP’s to the regions of the country to President Ahmed Mohamed “Siilaanyo” in order to have the final call on it.
The second provision of their agreement is providing, that all the parties to comply and act in accordance with any decisions made by the president on the seat allocations in the House of Representatives.
Finally, Somaliland Non-State Actors Forum (SONSAF) and Academy for Peace and Development (ADP) will monitor and control the implementations of the agreed points.
The act of the electoral procedure of the house of the representatives and particularly the issue of allocation of parliamentary seats to the regions of the country has been an obstacle to the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections which have been scheduled to take place on March, 2017 in Somaliland.
The Ruling party, KULMIYE and opposition party Waddani accused one another of playing delay tactics and not ready for the coming elections.
Chairman and Presidential Candidate of ruling KULMIYE Party Mose Behi Abdi last week declaring his party’s stance on the coming elections condemned Waddani party and it’s Chairman of delaying the elections. He said, “Waddani Chairman has been the Chairperson of the House of Representatives for more than a decade, and still the act of the electoral procedure of the house of the representatives and the proportional allocation of parliamentary seats to the regions seems to be a challenge to the upcoming elections.”
Waddani Party in their side accused President Siilaanyo and the ruling party of behind any possible delay to the upcoming elections which are expected to take place on March, 2017.
For more than a decade, there have not been any progress made on the impasse of the proportional allocation of Parliamentary seats as it seemed and that have resulted for the term extension of the current MP’s for more than three times. The current house of representatives have been in office for 11 years.
___________________________________________ By Mohamoud Qodah
