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Elections, Political Activism and Advocacy – Low Priority
This category was marked as a low priority by two parties, and a medium priority by the third
party; the low prioritization is likely due to the fact that the next (2015) elections are perceived
as being far away. All parties focused on the need to recruit and prepare competent candidates.
Within this sub-category, two parties emphasized that candidates need to understand and
represent party platforms and ideology, suggesting that trainings on the topics be required as a
condition for selection as candidate. The challenge to this, as mentioned elsewhere, is the
influence of the clans in the selection of candidates. Several participants also noted that many
voters prefer male candidates over female candidates.
Participants of one party also prioritized the creation of transparent candidacy criteria and a
transparent selection process. Participants suggested that parties should strengthen internal
party democracy mechanisms to select candidates.
Priority Opportunities for International Support
The priorities for political party development discussed in the previous section focused on
priorities that political parties enunciated based on their experience and knowledge. This
section focuses on how international funders can support political party priorities as well as
additional matters that the assessment team recommends as priorities, based on data from
workshops, stakeholder interviews, literature review and observation.
Many of these opportunities overlap and are mutually reinforcing. Indeed, these opportunities
will reap the most benefit if undertaken with the understanding that party development cannot
be implemented one element at a time: platform development is linked to leadership capacity,
which is linked to member capacity and resource mobilization, itself linked to economic
development, and so on. While Somalilanders have themselves been able to identify top
priority elements, many of these depend on equal advancement among other categories, as well
as advancement in other sectors, such as civil society and executive and local governance.
Opportunity 1: Support programs that provide technical assistance to parties in creating
clear and distinct national party identities and issue-based platforms.
Without a party identity, parties cannot seriously compete on issues or campaign outside of
potentially divisive identity politics. Without competing on issues, parties cannot be held
accountable to the electorate for their members’ efforts while in office, members cannot woo
voters on the party’s objective merit as opposed to clan affiliation, and there is little incentive
for truly democratic governance for and by the people.
Developing a national party identity is challenging in an environment where clan interests
dominate the political scene. In the report on the second annual conference held in 2011, the
Social Research and Development Institute noted:
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Reflections and Lessons of Somaliland's Two Decades of Sustained Peace, Statebuilding and Democratization
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Publication. Vol. 2. Hargeisa: SORADI, 2012. Print, pg. 1.
