KULMIYE Party

Political wars of attrition

Rayaale has so far been winning the battle of political attrition in Somaliland

Actually, Somaliland’s battle of political attrition does not fit with the classical definition of attrition tactics which assumes the existence of two, more or less, equal parts in a conflict. In the case of Somaliland politics, attrition tactics remain to be the prime tool of Rayaale andhis resourceful camp. The maneuver is simple, but it works each time for them, not because of its ingenuity, but rather because of the opposition’s glaring lack of political wit.

In general political wars of attrition are fueled by conflicts (Fearon 1990, 1992 and Martin 1993), which arise either out of a natural situation or are intentionally created by one of the parts in the conflict. Assuming the parts in the conflict to be equally armed (sum of the resources each owns); any of the parts can choose to attack, back down or escalate the conflict.

Each of these of decisions is associated with risky consequences. If a part in the conflict backs down, and especially if the part backs down too often, its leaders suffer audience costs (lost of confidence) which increases proportionally with the frequency and escalation of the crisis. These costs arise from the action of domestic audiences concerned with whether the leadership is successful or unsuccessful at acting on their behalf.

Now, in the Somaliland political scenario, conflicts and contests do arise more frequently than can be appreciated by any of the honest stakeholders in the country. In fact 3 or 4 times in a year since Rayaale came to power by a flimsy margin in 2003. In all cases, the political crisis was deliberately engineered by the Government. The ingredients for cooking up a conflict are always the same: Rayaale preemptively executes some apparently unconstitutional move which shocks the public and this usually pulls the rug from the under feet of the opposition. They scramble for ways to react to the Government’s proactive tactics. The Government keeps up the pressure for some weeks, and watches the opposition fume empty words with conflicting messages, which more often than not, undertone their opposition to each other, instead of a united front vis-â-vis the Government.

Mediations with predicable results

I said earlier that Somaliland’s political attrition does not conform to the classical definition of the term, mainly because the parts in the conflict are not equal. The Government has all the resources: the money, the police, the media, the always cooperative Guurti, the running dogs (guulwadeyaal) and a horde of unscrupulous ministers who do not hesitate to exchange their own mothers for a handout from the President’s household. On the top of this, the Governments propaganda machinery succeeded in dividing the poor public along tribal lines, a classical example of divide and rule. After a few weeks of accusations and counter-accusations, the opposition runs out of steam and the public loses interest, or rather gives up in dispair.

Rayaale then moves for the kill. Sounding like a benevolent Statement and your beloved father-figure, he sends out a cordial invitation of “wada tashi” to certain groups of the society including the opposition, the Guurti, religious persons and tribal head honchos. Out this forms the well-known mediation committees which sit, eat, chew and deliberate for a week or two. So far the result has always been the same: A unanimous rule in favour of the President. The opposition eventually abandons ship in midstream and concedes all points of the match.

Audience cost

My dear comrades in arms, Messers Ahmed and Faisal, and, indeed, all the men and women in the leadership of the opposition parties, I might have exaggerated a little in my above analysis, but the fact remains that the truth on our ground is not very far from what I thus described. So far, this way ended every one of Rayaale’s political wars. The opposition keeps losing both the war and the battle each time. I will not tell you that Somaliland’s public lost confidence in you, because it is not true. Despite considerable audience cost, given our repetetive sustainment of defeat, the Somaliland public has great confidence in you and hopes you will not fail them, yet one more time.

posted by Ahmed H Nur @ 7:07 AM 0 comments