Does Kulmiye Have a
Misyar Marriage With Sheikh Sharif ?
There has been a spate of reports recently in the Somaliland press
that a contingent of Kulmiye supporters from the UK attended the
recent Djibouti conference that elected Sheikh Sharif Ahmed as
President of Somalia. In addition, it has also been reported that
this contingent held at least one secret meeting with the new
President of Somalia, and that the two sides have agreed to meet
again in Mogadishu in early April. This date is significant in that
it is immediately after the Somaliland elections which are scheduled
for end-March 2009. The reports continue that the two parties have
reached a secret agreement that if Kulmiye wins the upcoming
Presidential elections, they will agree to a form of federal
structure uniting Somaliland & Somalia.
There have been rumours about the federalist leanings of Mr. Ahmed
Mahmoud Silanyo, Chairman of Kulmiye and its candidate for President
in the upcoming elections, for many years now. It is also a fact
that some erstwhile prominent Kulmiye members, such as Sifir, have
long been ensconced in the various parliaments convened for Somalia
since the time of Abdi Salat Qasim’s ill-fated TNG. Thus, these
latest reports cannot be dismissed as idle chatter and they demand a
clear response from Kulmiye and its Chairman. The simple fact is
that it is against the law for a Somaliland citizen to attend these
conferences convened to establish governments for Somalia. It is
also a simple fact that the constitution of Somaliland is premised
upon the independence of the country and the recovery of our
sovereignty from Somalia.
Thus, for a prospective Presidential candidate to be party to an
agreement that would surrender that sovereignty is nothing less than
treason. To be sure, everyone is entitled to his or her political
beliefs, and support for a federal state which unites Somalia and
Somaliland is neither dishonourable nor disloyal. What is
unacceptable and inexcusable, however, is for a prospective
Presidential candidate or party to present one face to the
electorate, while presenting another, diametrically opposed to the
first, to foreign leaders while conspiring to subvert the
constitution under which he/it seeks office.
These reports may well be false, yet neither Kulmiye nor Mr. Silanyo
has seen fit to deny them. It is high time for both Kulmiye as a
party and Mr. Silanyo to put a stop to these reports by either
issuing definitive denials proving the falsity of these reports, or
by coming clean and initiating a debate on their position regarding
Somaliland’s independence. However, if they persist with ambiguity
of the current position regarding their reported Misyar marriage to
Sheikh Sharif, they must know that the people of Somaliland will
divorce them emphatically.
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