Monday 19 August 2013

WHEN THE PRESIDENT TRAMPLES THE CONSTITUTION


By Faisal Roble
Every government that came to Mogadishu since the Barre regime had claimed to be legitimate. The loudest noise and more intense claim for legitimacy had been echoed by the current government.  On the contrary, the current government is less legitimate than its predecessor.  Given how much it erred and abused the recently drafted Provisional Federal Constitution (PFC), one could easily argue that Hassan Sheikh’s government in Mogadishu is a government with the least legitimacy and may have dashed once again probable hopes for regrouping Somalia.
An African proverb says: WHEN ELEPHANTS FIGHT, THE GRASS DISAPPEARS.  When the President of Somalia vows to undermine the Provisional Federal Constitution (PFC) of Somalia, the country suffers and further disintegration becomes the norm.  If so, one can’t protect a nation whose President is undoing its very binding constitution. 
Who needs a Federalist Constitution?
In case the novice President and his team failed to fathom the profundity of the need for the current PFC, it was intended to address three main objectives that are central to Somalia’s existence as a united country:
constThe first objective was to curtail the disintegration of the Former Republic of Somalia.  Somalia’s disintegration started in earnest with the suffocation of democratic values during the years of the Military rule. In search for change, young military officers, mainly hailing from the Puntland regions of Somalia, tried to remove the late dictator, General Mohamed Siyad Barre, through a military coup.  By this time, the Barre regime was showing signs of major political fissures, and his authority’s legitimacy was in the waning.Continued

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