Somaliland Presidential Election Chronicles: Back to the Future?
Part III
By A. Mohamed Ali Hashi ‘Dhimbiil’
ADDIS ABABA, 7 MARCH 2003 (ADDIS TRIBUNE)--Presidential elections are scheduled in Somaliland for April 14, next month. These series of articles will provide an in-depth analysis of the election. Two diaspor-based Somalilanders, a political scientist (Dhimbiil) and Psychiatrist (Jowhar), will provide the analysis on alternate weeks.

A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state, especially of the highest of all. The government is everywhere sovereign in the state, and the constitution is in fact the government. Aristotle, Politics (Book 3)

Two forces are vying for the future of Africa: one is authoritarian, the other democratic. Curiously, the authoritarian strain was once democratic; previously, it had embraced the ideology of democracy so as to awaken the masses for insurrection against imperialism and colonialism. At the dawn of independence many of these once democratic organizations and leaders transformed themselves into one party states and later into deadly and predatory autocrats.