USAID Cooperative Agreement No. 623-G-00-04-00077-00
Project Dates: September 20, 2004 – September 15, 2005
Total Budget: $200,000 Expenses to Date: $91,875

I. SUMMARY

As Somaliland prepares for national legislative elections, it approaches a defining moment. If these elections are carried out successfully, then the fledgling nation will have achieved a feat without equal in its region: it will have a democratically elected president, democratically elected municipal governments, a constitution that was overwhelmingly approved by popular referendum and, finally, a parliament that is directly elected and accountable to the people.

To ensure truly competitive elections, the region’s young political organizations will need assistance in developing the capacity to effectively represent citizens’ views, support candidates competing for office, ensure that elections are fairly conducted, and participate in post-election political processes. The organizations’ successful execution of these tasks will be crucial to legitimizing the elections.

The upcoming elections and post-election political processes hold great importance for Somaliland’s stability. Given the critical nature of these events and realizing that Somaliland’s political organizations lack the crucial experience necessary for their growth, IRI’s political party empowerment program in Somaliland aims to do the following:

- Empower Somaliland election candidates to effectively conduct voter-oriented democratic campaigns critical to their successful participation in the upcoming legislative elections.
- Empower Somaliland political parties to effectively conduct activities critical to their successful participation in the political process following elections.

II. BACKGROUND

Somaliland’s current unelected parliament has been aware for two years that its mandate would expire in May 2005. However, despite the election date of March 29th, 2005 set by President Riyale in mid-2004, by January 2005 the parliament had still not passed an election law allowing preparations for the election. Since a nationwide election in Somaliland requires at a minimum 4-6 months of preparation, stakeholders across the spectrum in Somaliland were dismayed by this delay.

When the House finally passed the election bill in mid-January, this breakthrough did little to alleviate uncertainty about the prospects for timely elections. The bill as passed contained clauses requiring that a nationwide voter registration exercise be completed before voting took place, and that voting be held in every part of Somaliland. Neither of these clauses is practicable at this time in Somaliland, and neither requirement was in place for Somaliland’s two previous elections (municipal council elections in 2002 and the presidential election in 2003). There has never been a reliable census in Somaliland, and citizens hold no common form of identification. Consequently, any credible voter registration exercise would take months if not years to complete. Furthermore, the occupation of certain areas of eastern Somaliland by Puntland militias makes it impossible for voting to be held in those areas. Therefore, the election bill had the effect of delaying parliamentary elections indefinitely without providing any source of legitimacy for the current lame-duck unelected parliament.

During a January 2005 visit to Hargeisa, IRI staff attended a public forum where the election bill was debated. Members of parliament who had voted for the bill argued that the parliamentary elections could not be legitimate without a credible list of registered voters, and that the parliament could not represent the people if elections were not held in all parts of Somaliland. Attendees argued that the parliament had put Somaliland on a path to political and constitutional crisis, and that an imperfect election such as the two held previously was vastly preferable to an indefinitely delayed election.

Despite intense lobbying by political parties and civil society, in mid-February the guurti (Somaliland’s upper chamber of parliament, made up of clan elders) overwhelmingly approved the election bill passed by the House, forwarding it to the president for his signature. Although the veto-proof two-thirds majorities supporting the bill in both houses took away the president’s power to reject the legislation, President Riyale exercised his one remaining option short of dissolving parliament: he forwarded the bill to the Constitutional Court to rule on its constitutionality.

In early March, the court broke the political stalemate by declaring the clauses in question to be unconstitutional. The bill was returned to the House, which was instructed to pass a new bill that did not include these clauses. Somaliland’s leading political figures entered discussions aimed at reaching consensus on the new law and a new election date.

The most contentious issue in these discussions was the distribution of parliamentary seats between Somaliland’s six regions. The political parties eventually reached an agreement that for this election, in the absence of reliable census information, seat distribution would mirror that of Somaliland’s last parliamentary elections, which were held in 1960; that distribution had been based on an agreement among clans. Despite early resistance from President Riyale, who felt that his home region of Awdal was under-represented in this formula, by mid-April consensus had been reached and the government announced that the new election date would be September 15, 2005.

Successful elections in September will not only complete the Somaliland government’s formal transition to elective democracy, but will also affirm the region’s continued conviction for democratic governance, and serve as a model for the conflict-ridden Horn of Africa, where such conviction is scarce. Conversely, failed elections may derail that troubled region’s most promising democratic effort and exacerbate an already grim outlook for security and stability in the Horn.

III. PROGRAM ACTIVITIES

During the early months of IRI’s program, the Institute’s activities to provide campaign training to Somaliland’s political parties were on hold, due to uncertainty about whether and when a parliamentary election would be held. However, by mid-April of this year all contentious issues had been satisfactorily resolved, and the government announced that the election will be held on 15 September 2005. After this announcement, IRI immediately began planning to restart its training activities in Somaliland.

Interim Assessment Mission

From June 8-12, an IRI delegation consisting of East Africa Regional Director Peter Mackenzie and Somaliland Program Manager Husna Hassan visited Somaliland to assess the political environment, gather feedback on IRI’s initial training activities and determine the political parties’ needs for capacity building in preparation for Somaliland’s first parliamentary elections. The team first met with Somaliland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ms. Edna Aden Ismail, who identified the main challenges facing the election process as low literacy rates among voters, the clan/religious factor, and marginalization of women candidates. She argued that intense civic education needs to be conducted at the grassroots level to train the voters how to vote, avoid the wastage of many ballot papers, and train people to aid illiterate voters. Since the parliament did not embed the quota-based allocation of seats for women in electoral law that many women’s groups expected, Ms. Ismail remarked, the women will have to organize themselves, select the strongest women candidates and lobby for them to contest.

She also commented favorably on the regional party list system, pointing out that it will involve participation by the clans and elders. She also pointed to the recent violence in Ethiopia as a deterrent for those in Somaliland who would seek to undermine free and fair elections.

IRI met with Mr. Muhammad Hassan Ibrahim and Mr. Mohammed Saeed Gees, the Executive Director and Elections Manager, respectively, of the Academy for Peace and Development (APD). The APD is a local think-tank that has been involved in governance issues and the democratization process since 1997. Mr. Gees observed that free and fair parliamentary elections will depend mainly on how political parties prepare their candidates. The regional party list system was recommended since it will encourage politics based on personalities and place less emphasis on clan loyalties. Some of the challenges Mr. Gees noted for regional party voting include double voting, the lack of National Electoral Commission (NEC) preparation to handle a larger-than-expected turnout, and questions about what happens when two candidates from the same party get an equal number of votes for one available seat.

The possible double-voting will be solved through the use of indelible ink, and APD will work with NEC and the three political parties to find mechanisms for solving the other challenges. Each vote cast will be counted twice, once to register the political party receiving the vote and once for the candidate. Once the seats have been divided according to the proportion of votes received by each party, the number of votes per candidate will determine which candidates will fill each seat.

The APD noted that so far all three political parties are committed to the parliamentary elections and there are no signs that any party will boycott the process. Two weeks ago, President Riyale released a decree to the Ministry of Information for equal access to state-owned radio to be provided to all political parties. Mr. Gees informed IRI that he had recently paid President Riyale a courtesy call and advised him to meet with A.M. Silanyo, the KULMIYE Chairman, in order to curb any possible conflicts between the government and opposition.

The commitment of the political parties to women and minority groups still remains elusive. The APD has advised minority groups to produce only one candidate in each race, so as to not divide minority votes among multiple candidates. The political parties’ nomination procedures remain unclear, and there is also uncertainty about the process for nomination of the Guurti after their term comes to an end later this year.

Using the political parties’ Code of Conduct, the APD is facilitating dialogue among the parties about to fill gaps within the Electoral Law. Currently, the organization is looking at strategies for dealing with contentious issues like the misuse of public finances, equal media access, and security during the upcoming parliamentary elections. In addition, APD has requested the involvement of political parties and their members in the formation of Regional Election Commissions to ensure impartiality.

With grants from the European Union, the APD intends to implement civic education, training for the Electoral Commission, party agents, and local observers. APD has translated into Somali IRI’s South African observer and voter education handbooks. Mr. Gees advised IRI to modify its training materials to the Somali context, and also offered its trainers to enhance IRI training. It was noted that training at the regional level is important, and that IRI should have at least one staff member on the ground to follow the process and coordinate activities with other organizations.

Some of the capacity building needs APD identified for the political parties included:

- Communication and message development,
- Campaign strategy,
- Voter Mobilization, and
- Making the Code of Conduct work.

IRI visited NAGAAD, an umbrella group for women’s advocacy in Somaliland, and met with Sado Hashi Awad, the Executive Director and Kinzi Kowden, the Manager of the Women’s Political Forum. NAGAAD remains hopeful about the forthcoming parliamentary elections and believes that compromise through dialogue can resolve any differences among the parties. Given the 90% illiteracy rate amongst Somali women, NAGAAD has developed a manual to assist women’s in the election. In addition, NAGAAD will train local independent observers to assist illiterate voters. Ms. Awad and Ms. Kowden stated that their goal for 10-15 women candidates out of 246 to be selected to join the regional political parties’ candidate lists. The reality on the ground is dictated by the clan system, impairing women’s chanced for nomination. If no female candidates are elected, NAGAAD and other women’s groups will appeal for affirmative action in the form of 4 seats reserved for women and 4 seats for minority groups. The unfortunate reality is that most women voters are not yet ready to vote for female candidates, and tend to remain loyal to the clan system.

IRI then met with Mr. Keyse Roble, the chairperson of East Africa Youth Leadership (EAYL), who noted with dismay the weakness and centralized nature of Somaliland’s political party structures. Mr. Roble, in his 20s, also feels that the constitutional minimum age for parliamentary candidates of 35 years is too high, and discriminates against young politicians, especially since there is no corresponding upper age limit.

Mr. Roble commented that the NEC could effectively utilize young professionals as poll workers and observers. The NEC should ensure that its regional commissioners are young, energetic, and patriotic. The political parties should also include youth in their teams of poll watchers. In preparation for the parliamentary election, EAYL will engage youth in capacity building on the importance of participating and turning out to vote and voters’ rights; EAYL will also train the political parties’ youth wings.

Abdirahman M. Abdillahi, the Deputy Secretary General of the UCID Political Party and a possible parliamentary candidate, spoke to IRI about how parties should be bound to the Code of Conduct. He then described the vigilant watchdog committee that is being formed by highprofile and well-respected citizens; in the event of any irregularities, the committee will report to NEC, which will mediate and, in extreme cases, fine the political party or candidate involved. Mr. Abdillahi explained that each political party will nominate 82 candidates divided between 6 regions. Interested candidates will submit their applications to the regional party committees, which will check candidates against the requirements stipulated in the election law. Approved candidates will be forwarded to the parties’ national executive committees by June 30th, 2005 and the regional party committees will select the best candidates. The party will conduct interviews with promising candidates and a final list will be published by NEC by August 1st, 2005. Mr. Abdillahi told IRI that UCID will give preference to highly educated young candidates who are active party members.

The National Campaign Committee will develop UCID’s campaign platform, which will be composed of 9 to 11 party members. Regional Campaign Committees will also be formed, each of which will have 5 members. All campaign committees will be constituted before the end of June. Their duties will include assisting in the campaign process, preparing candidates, developing media contacts for the party and its candidates, coordinating regional campaign communication and hiring staff. However, candidates are free to choose their own campaign managers as long as the party’s platform is maintained. UCID will not provide direct financial assistance to candidates, but will fund the national and regional campaign committees to assist them in their campaigns. Campaign materials for candidates will be produced by the party, which will also organize and mobilize members for the candidates’ rallies.

UCID does not expect the elections to be 100% free and fair. The ruling UDUB will always have an advantage over the other two parties due to its access to state resources, noted Mr. Abdillahi, even though the Code of Conduct prohibits parties from unfair use of such resources. He doubts that the watchdog committee will have access to banking documents proving such malfeasance by UDUB. UDUB may also misuse state power, for instance through the use of roadblocks by police officers and by ordering local politicians to disperse opposition campaign gatherings. However, unlike in previous elections, free access to the media is now guaranteed by the code of conduct. Monitoring and recording by the NEC will ensure that equal airtime and media space is allocated to each political party.

Some training needs Mr. Abdirahman highlighted include:

- Training party poll watchers,
- Separate trainings for the National Campaign Committee and Regional Campaign Committees, and
- Campaign strategy training for candidates and campaign managers.

Some topics for training that he highlighted include:

- Communication and message development,
- Media utilization,
- Campaign planning, and
- Understanding the code of conduct and election law.

The IRI team met with UCID Chairman Faisal Warabe. Mr. Warabe praised the democratic nature of consensus-building engrained in Somalis and urged that this democratic nature should be emphasized as a role model for Africans. During this brief meeting, Mr. Warabe explained the history of his party and commented on Somaliland’s current position with regard to Somalia and Africa as a whole.

The officials of the ruling UDUB party informed the IRI team that the party is working on building its campaign structures, campaign action plan, and campaign platform. UDUB’s National Campaign Committee has already been formed. Officials recommended to IRI that the training for the NCC be done first. By June 20th UDUB will have identified its Regional Campaign Committees, which will be made up of a maximum of 13 members from each region.

UDUB officials recommended training for parliamentary candidates, highlighting areas of need such as campaign strategy, professional ethics and responsibilities (including the code of conduct), communication strategies, fundraising, and training for party poll watchers. UDUB also recommended capacity building for the political parties after the election in areas such as maintaining party loyalty, the role of a ruling political party in government leadership, and effective opposition politics. UDUB also expressed an interest in training to prepare political parties for a scenario in which one party controls the executive and another controls the parliament, a scenario which is not entirely unrealistic in Somaliland at present.

The IRI team then met with the acting Executive Director and Program Manager for Civic Education for HAVOYOCO, an umbrella group for youth activists. The HAVOYOCO officials told IRI that, despite the fact that democracy is still a somewhat alien concept to Somalilanders, the electorate is eager to participate in parliamentary elections.

It remains a big challenge to lobby for youth parliamentarians, given the high age limit for candidates as well as cultural factors affecting the perception of youth leadership. And while young people still face difficulties, they can always participate in grassroots civic activism. HAVOYOCO argued that non-violent political activity by youth is hard to maintain because unemployed and illiterate youth often take advantage of such difficult circumstances to make trouble; some may be agents provocateurs hired by government and party leaders to discredit youth activists. Also, despite freedom of expression many young Somalilanders censor themselves out of a desire for national stability and a fear of giving an advantage to the country’s enemies.

HAVOYOCO feels that the election will be partially unfair due to ethnic influence and government manipulation. Other factors that may impair the election’s fairness include poor coordination of polling stations and the excessively close relationship between the NEC, the government and the ruling UDUB party.

That same day, the IRI team met with officials of the KULMIYE party, whose office was abuzz with activity. KULMIYE announced that its National Campaign Committee will consist of 20-27 members, including 7 women, whereas the Regional Campaign Committees will be composed of 7-9 members per region. Apart from capacity building needs already identified by the other two parties, KULMIYE added that public speaking and debate skills should be covered in communications training. The team was told that a mix of local and international trainers would be desirable.

KULMIYE believes that though they are seen as the ‘intellectual party’, they understand the danger of being perceived as elitists, and in the campaign they will seek to use language that is appropriate to each region and locality. Its leaders believe that, if elections are to be free and fair, the party will win over 50% of the parliamentary seats. The party has reached this conclusion through word of mouth surveys as well as internet polling. Officials believe that 95% of Somalilanders in the Diaspora support KULMIYE; the Diaspora community can see that nothing has been achieved since UDUB took power, with the exception of continuing stability and peace. Unemployment and inflation are extremely high.

KULMIYE does not believe that a level playing field will be provided to all parties, since the government currently does not respect the constitution and the party is by no means certain that the government will stick by the code of conduct. However, KULMIYE officials said that no matter what tactics the ruling party uses, KULMIYE will never boycott the elections. As an opposition party, they are ready to accept a certain level of unfairness.

Finally, IRI’s team met with several members of the National Election Commission. Jerry McCann of the War-torn Societies Project (WSP) was also present at the meeting. Identified needs for the NEC staff included training for party poll-watchers. WSP and the NEC requested that IRI allocate funds to this and help to facilitate such training.

Many have accused NEC of partiality. To gain the people’s confidence, NEC will have to ensure a fair distribution of polling stations across Somaliland, and that all political parties and candidates sign and abide by the code of conduct.

A NEC official told IRI that, in order to reduce mistrust and increase confidence, the NEC has held discussions with President Riyale to finalize the code of conduct, and has also advised the president to meet with KULMIYE so that they may air any grievances and solve them amicably. The interests of women and minority groups are still not sufficiently protected by the electoral law and the code of conduct. However, it remains the political parties’ responsibility to show their commitment and support for marginalized groups by supporting affirmative action in the distribution of parliamentary candidates.

IRI found this assessment visit to be of great utility as it designs its programs to prepare the political parties for the upcoming election. The Institute was pleased to see a general consensus among the political parties as to their basic needs for capacity-building, which include:

- Campaign planning and strategy,
- Communications and media relations,
- Fundraising, and
- Familiarization with the election law and the code of conduct. IRI will seek to conduct training on these core areas of need at both the parties’ national and regional campaign committees.

The parties also identified potential areas for post-election capacity building, including:

- Maintaining party loyalty,
- Political parties’ role in governance and leadership, IRI Somaliland 8034 Quarterly Report 9 April - June 2005
- Forming an effective opposition,
- The role of a ruling party, and
- Inter-party relations in the event of a divided government.

National Campaign Committee Training

IRI held a campaign planning workshop from June 27-30th at the Maan Soor Hotel in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Participants included 16 members each from the National Campaign Committees of Somaliland’s three official political parties, as well as 19 representatives of civil society organizations. This was by far the largest workshop IRI has ever hosted in Somaliland. The workshop focused on campaign planning and strategy, internal and external campaign communications, media relations, political fundraising, and ethics and responsibilities, as defined by the electoral law and the party code of conduct.

The workshop began with a session on campaign strategy led by the Honorable Joseph Donde, a Kenyan former member of parliament and former Executive Director and Vice Chairman of the FORD-Kenya party. The first step in a successful campaign, Hon. Donde outlined, is to organize a strong campaign team. This team should be made up of seasoned and highly-skilled party members, but not necessarily ones who intend to stand as candidates. The campaign committee members should clearly understand the vision and mission of the party, and particular members should be identified to focus on communications and media relations.

The Hon. Donde also spoke about the need for parties to produce mission and vision statements and manifestoes that are distributed and clearly explained to campaign team members. These documents assist parties in building a campaign appeal based on issues and policy agendas rather than clan or personality issues.

Strategies were suggested for identifying strong candidates, and presented a list of some essential qualities that candidates must have, the most important of which was strong leadership skills. Hon. Donde later focused on the role of the campaign committees during the actual campaign period. He outlined some key campaign activities to be organized by campaign committees, and discussed how campaign officials should prepare the candidates, including crucial pieces of information that campaign officials must provide to them. The Hon. Donde underlined the need for parties to make use of polling agents on election day.

Subsequently, Kenyan media consultant Jerry Okungu led a session on internal party communication. Mr. Okungu began his session with a “telephone” exercise, whispering a message in one participant’s ear and asking him to pass it on. The original message was “My party will win this election.” The message reported by the final participant in the chain was “We are all KULMIYE.” The objective of this exercise was to show that when a message is conveyed through a number of individuals, it is inevitably modified according to each person’s perceptions. To avoid this, parties need to develop clear, coherent messages that are conveyed to all in a consistent manner by qualified spokesmen. He also urged parties to ensure strong linkages between the national campaign committees and the grassroots members, and not to allow the NCC to be hijacked by party elites or cliques.

Mr. Okungu also addressed the issue of media selection with the participants. He cited formal media such as radio, newspapers and television do not have a very wide reach in Somaliland, especially in the rural areas. Therefore, more informal channels of communication need to be utilized, such as mobile phones and high frequency two-way radios. He cited the key role that text-messaging played in Kenya’s 2002 general election.

Mr. Okungu concentrated part of his presentation on campaign communications strategy where he encouraged the participants to design specific messages for various target groups. He began the session by listing some of the key issues in the upcoming election, issues which can be used by the parties in building their campaign messages. He also presented the basic principles of effective message development, including clarity, simplicity, and audience targeting. Afterward, Mr. Okungu assessed the potential of Somaliland’s media and communication organs (Radio Hargeisa, SLTV, the newspapers, etc.), discussing each one’s potential to reach voters.

Mr. Okungu also emphasized that campaign communications be tailored to the Somali environment, utilizing casual gatherings such as qat-chewing sessions and women’s groups. He used ideas from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point to explain how informal social networks can spread messages and ideas even more quickly than traditional media organs. After finishing his presentation, Mr. Okungu broke the delegates into groups and assigned them individual projects. Each project involved the preparation of a media event, including press releases, press conferences, television interviews, and public rallies. Presenters explained their strategies in organizing each event, and then did a mock run of the event itself.

The final day of the workshop was conducted in Somali by Abdi Gureh, a professional trainer from the Hargeisa-based Forum for Peace and Governance. His first session began with a group discussion of the need for fundraising, the main objectives of fundraising, and possible sources of funds accessible by Somaliland’s parties. Mr. Okungu contributed to the discussion by giving examples of successful fundraising in several African countries. The first case study related how Tanzania’s Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party localized party “ownership,” resulting in increased contributions from the party’s membership. This enabled the party to buy real estate that was leased out to provide a steady revenue source. A similar case is presented by Uganda’s UPC. In Kenya, Mr. Okungu explained, any KANU member interested to running for a parliamentary seat is required to register for life membership, with fees to be extracted by parliament from the member’s paycheck on a regular basis and deposited in the party account. Gureh and Okungu emphasized that parties should not wait until the election season to begin fundraising, but rather see it as a continuous exercise. Mr. Okungu suggested that the parties draw maps to indicate areas of the country where wealth is concentrated, as well as those where the support for the party is concentrated; this will provide an excellent guide to areas for the party to focus on in its fundraising strategy.

Mr. Gureh continued with a discussion of the difficulties of fundraising in Somaliland, including poor economic conditions, underdeveloped infrastructure, a lack of civic culture, the dominance of clans, and the absence of public funding of campaigns. Despite these difficulties, Mr. Gureh argued that there are potential funding sources within Somaliland and the diaspora community. He listed a number of potential funding sources and described some key strategies in mobilizing these funds to support party campaigns.

After completing his session on fundraising, Mr. Gureh spent a shorter session addressing the ethics and responsibilities outlined in the nearly-completed party code of conduct.

Discussions with the NEC Regarding International Election Observers

While on Hargeisa for its assessment mission, the IRI team reviewed an English language draft of Somaliland’s election law. Upon reviewing this law, serious flaws became evident to IRI with regard to the role of international election observers. The most troubling of these is Article 42, Section 1, which states that “only officeholders working at the polling station, agents of the parties and voters casting their votes may enter the polling station.” The unavoidable implication of this article is that any international election observer entering a polling station during voting, with or without the permission of election officials, will be in direct violation of the law of the Republic of Somaliland.

Upon its return to Hargeisa for the NCC training, IRI discussed these potential problems with Ruben Zamorra, a Salvadoran elections consultant who had been assisting the NEC for the past several months. Mr. Zamorra told IRI that he shared these concerns and had raised them with the NEC Chairman, but the Chairman did not seem to recognize how serious an issue it was. He tried to assure Mr. Zamorra that it was merely an oversight on the part of the lawmakers, and that he would ensure that all polling station officials allow international observers into the polls. Mr. Zamorra insisted that this was not just a matter of logistics, but rather a matter of the rule of law, and that international observers would not want to be put in such a legally ambiguous position. Agreeing with Mr. Zamorra’s arguments, IRI staff drafted a letter to the NEC listing all the articles of the law that require clarification or modification with regard to international observers. IRI scheduled a meeting on July 2nd with the chairman to explain its concerns and present the letter to him.

IV. RESULTS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Objective: Empower Somaliland election candidates to effectively conduct voter-oriented democratic campaigns critical to their successful participation in the upcoming legislative elections. The Institute’s workshop this quarter on campaign planning and strategy, communications, media relations, fundraising, and ethics aimed to increase the capacity of the three parties’ national campaign commissions to more effectively campaign for the September 15th elections, and to prepare election candidates for what is likely to be a close-fought campaign. The presentations led by Jerry Okungu, in particular, detailed not only some of the core media and communications challenges that candidates and political parties face leading up to elections, but also some specific ways these challenges can be overcome.

Mr. Okungu’s analysis of some of the more effective means of media usage and his suggestion of utilizing cellular text messaging for campaigning were well received by the participants. Additionally, his emphasis on tailoring successful campaign tactics to Somaliland’s culture (such as holding casual political gatherings at qat-chewing sessions and among women’s support groups) helped the participants to think more creatively about their campaign strategies and finetune them to fit the communities in which they are campaigning.

Political fundraising is a sometimes insurmountable hurdle facing parties across the African continent. In Somaliland, parties have no strong examples among their neighbors of successful and financially sound political parties. For instance: Ethiopia’s ruling party has traditionally controlled so many of the government resources that its opposition parties have very little support; and in Somalia, there has been no political system functioning of late. So the advice and successful East African examples shared by Mr. Okungu were of great interest to the workshop participants. The levels of success the workshop participants have with fundraising will be analyzed in future quarterly reports.

Objective: Empower Somaliland political parties to effectively conduct activities critical to their successful participation in the political process following elections.

No results to report at this time.

V. EVALUATION

The Institute has completed two of the four pre-election workshops to which it has committed, aimed at empowering Somaliland’s parties to conduct voter-oriented democratic campaigns and conduct effective election-related activities prior to their legislative elections. While IRI’s trainings have been well-received by the participants, a more substantive evaluation of the Institute’s impact will be made when the parties are campaigning with more rigor in the immediate lead-up to the September elections. Additionally, by possibly increasing the size of its grant from USAID in the coming months, IRI looks forward to conducting more programming on these issues and to building stronger election candidates and political parties in Somaliland.

VI. FUTURE ACTIVITIES

In the coming quarter, IRI intends to expand its campaign training to the regional level. Before the official campaign season begins in mid-August, the Institute will hold a series of workshops in three different locations in Somaliland, targeting members of the parties’ regional campaign committees. Each workshop will focus on election officials from two of Somaliland’s six regions, and each will build upon topics covered in IRI’s recent workshop for the national campaign committees, including campaign planning and strategy, candidate preparation, communications, media relations, fundraising and ethics.

After the regional training is completed, IRI will shift focus to preparing political party agents to monitor polling stations during the elections. In cooperation with several organizations and individuals, including the Academy for Peace and Development and Hargeisa University, supported by European Union funds, IRI will support one training-of-trainers workshop in August, and will devote resources to printing a comprehensive training manual.

IRI also plans to send a small observer team to Somaliland to observe the September 15th elections. This team will likely consist mostly of staff from IRI’s Nairobi office as well as several staff members and volunteers from other Africa offices and the DC headquarters.

After the election, IRI plans to hold several workshops for political party officials that focus on a political party’s role between elections. Topics will include the role and influence of a ruling party and the formation of an effective opposition in parliament, among other concerns such as party structure, internal democracy and membership recruitment.