Somaliland is a self-declared, de facto dependent region in the Horn of Africa, having unilaterally declared independence from Somalia in 1991. It has since maintained its own government, military, and institutions but has not been recognized internally to exercise its authority as a sovereign state.
The electoral process in Somaliland has been a controversy and an area of catching interest as it organizes elections in a beter manner than many countries. However, the politics of Somaliland tend to be characterized as ‘hybrid’ or ‘fragile’ politics. Although Somaliland conducts holding elections at regular intervals, those are critiqued for various reasons such as extreme restrictions on political liberties, no freedom of media, threats to voters, and prohibition of the active opposition. Besides, in some instances, the incumbents’ parties have claimed that the elections were rigged in favor of the government, that their activities have been crushed, or that the ruling party simply resorts to tampering with the system.
However, irrespective of these challenges, Somaliland is still able to conduct elections for its parliament and presidential seat with respective voter turnout, which signifies an interest from the public in governance in general. Still, such elections are turned out to be non-valid by many critics who claim that such a system can never be fully democratic and respect civil rights or even political plurality.
The situation in Somaliland is ambiguous. On the one hand, it is a case of a viable system of self-governance. On the other hand, there are lingering internal political rivalries and external diplomatic pressures because Somaliland has not been recognized as an independent state by the international community. Therefore, the expression ‘false democracy’ could be aimed at the underlying factors inhibiting the regions practice of true democracy, inclusive politics and healthy electoral competition.’
