The Somaliland national oppositional political party of Waddani, Sunday, declared that it has conditionally withdrawn from a consensus agreement all three political parties signed late July to break a stalemate revolving around parliamentary elections at year end.
Hersi Ali Haji Hassan, the ‘Leader’ of Waddani, today called a press conference at which he announced that his party had withdrawn from the agreement reached.
“It is laughable as it is perplexing that an agreement signed by the President, on behalf of the ruling party, Kulmiye, and the two chairmen of the two opposition parties, and witnessed by international partners is declared null and void by a single young man,” he said.
The ‘Leader’ was referring to the legal advisor of the House of Representatives (HoR) – the Lower House of Somaliland’s bicameral parliament, Mustafe Mohamed Haji Dahir, who on Saturday, abrogated the agreement a clause of which asked for an increase of number of Electoral Commissioners from 7 to 9.
“Only if Kulmiye and the President openly convince us that they are as pained as we are by this dereliction of legislative obligations on the part of the parliament, can we come back to the negotiating table,” he stated.
“Until then,” he added, “Waddani is no longer bound to the signed consensus reached by the three political parties”.
The legal Advisor to the HoR declared, Saturday, that the agreement reached was unconstitutional and, as such, a motion tabled by 22 MPs to the floor for deliberation of the president’s proposal did not merit discussion.
Following the Advisor’s view, the House went into recess without any debate on the matter which so riled the opposition parties.
Immediately afterwards, on the same day, both UCID and WADDANI took a joint stand which blamed the government for the absence of a serious discussion of the motion on agreement tabled.
The parties alleged that since pro-government, Kulmiye MPs held the majority, they could have insisted on honoring the agreement signed by the President – their Chairman, and that the Advisor could not have had a field day without their tacit consent.
In the meanwhile, the issue will remain in limbo until the President, Musa Bihi Abdi, away to Makkah, Saudi Arabia, for the Hajj, returns to office sometime within the week.
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