84
governors appointed by the president
125
and district mayors elected by the district councils.
Nineteen of the districts have elected district councils, two have appointed mayors but no
councils,
126
while the remaining smaller “Grade D” districts have not yet been officially ratified
by parliament and, since the 2007 amendments to the
Regions and Districts Self-Administration
Law
, are known as “temporary administrative districts” until their assessments are completed by
the government, their boundaries delineated and their status is confirmed by both houses.
127
The constitution also outlines bottom-up accountability structures at the local level (Article
111). These arrangements are more clearly articulated in the
Regions and Districts Self-
Administration Law (
Law No. 23
)
which provides the Ministry of Interior with responsibility
for overseeing local authorities, and relevant sector ministries with responsibility for overseeing
specific service delivery in their respective sectors. Importantly, under Law No. 23,
responsibility for the provision of key services (such as health, education, water) is given to
local authorities. The legal framework for local and presidential elections is found in the
Presidential and Local Elections Law
(Law No. 20/2001), dealing with issues of the local
council’s powers, electoral procedures, and eligibility for candidacy. This law has undergone a
series of amendments, including a reduction in the minimum age for contesting a local election,
which was reduced from 35 to 25 prior to the 2012 local elections and a shift towards an open
list proportional representation system in the local elections.
Efforts to advance decentralization and reform governance at a local level face a number of
problems. These include:
•
Inadequate legal frameworks
: A major issue in relation to governance in Somaliland is
that the decentralization process is not currently defined in a single piece of legislation,
but in the constitution and a number of secondary pieces of legislation. While
responsibility for services and revenue mobilization is provided in this legislation, there
are a number of shortcomings:
•
The relationship between local and central government is unclear, with existing
legislation failing to provide sufficient detail of how decentralization works in
practice, as well as failing to provide guidance in instances where jurisdiction is
unclear and two levels of government clash, such as land management and taxation;
•
Secondary laws, intended to grant the regional and local authorities adequate
administrative, fiscal and political powers to provide basic services and economic
development for their communities, have not been implemented due to a lack of
political will and resources;
125
In February 2013 the president caused controversy by issuing a presidential decree which saw a major reshuffle
of regional governors.
126
Due to security concerns, two of these districts did not hold elections in 2012.
127
According to Article 7 (e) of the
Regions and Districts Law 2002
: “With the exception of the residents of Hagal
who shall vote in the District of Berbera of the Sahil Region, all the residents of the new (Grade D) districts shall
cast their votes in the first local elections for the local councils of the districts from which the new districts have
been gouged out of.”
