How to evaluate the characteristics of the current leadership in Somalia?

By Muuse Yusuf

We are waiting for a visionary leadership to rescue us

IIn this article, which is part two of the article “A Challenge for the Members of the
Transitional Parliament (MTPs)” thatI published recently on the Hiiraan
Online and other sites, I will outline a methodology, which could be used as a
tool when evaluating the characteristics and the qualities of the current
leadership in Somalia – whether in the North or the South. While the Baydhabo
meeting is still in progress, I thought that the cyberspace community
particularly Somalis and their friends and supporters from the international
community are still questioning whether some leaders or personalities in the
Transitional Parliament have the legitimacy, the integrity, the credibility, and
the trust of the “constituencies” that they claim to “represent” and the Somali
people in general. Although this methodology has been developed, in a
hypothetical scenario, to help the general public reach own conclusion about the
position of some MTPs, in my humble opinion, the methodology could be used as a
guiding instrument when weighing up the post-colonial leadership in
Somalia.

In this article, I will use the term MTP (Members of the Transitional
Parliament) a phrase that I coined in the previous article and which I chosen
over the term MP (Member of Parliament).  This is because the term MP is
normally applicable in situations where there was a real election in which
constituencies elect their MPs directly. Therefore the word MTP is more
appropriate to the status of those leaders in Baydhabo who came about in a
selection process, and who were not elected by any real constituency at grass
level. Perhaps the MTPs’ current position is that of “care-takers” until such a
time when a legitimate federal parliament is elected by the people in the North
and the South of Somalia.

I must say that the aim of this article is not about exposing the
imperfection of others but is simply an attempt to develop a methodology that
might help Somalis and those interested in Somalia analyse the kind of
leadership that exit in Somalia  from 1960 – until now. Furthermore, the
methodology is to help the current leadership assess itself (self-assessment) in
order to decide whether the position of some leaders are defensible, and whether
the Somali people in the South and the North would ever accept them as
legitimate leaders in any present or future political and public life.

Methodology

I’m falling apart due to leadership failure

In a hypothetical situation, a group of 1000 ordinary Somalis from the North
and the South and from across clan affiliation descend in Baydhabo in order to
get to know and find out more about the leaders who are currently meeting in
Baydhabo. The group represents people from all the walks of life who had
experienced life under the civilian government (1960-1969), the military regime
(1969-1990) and the civil war (1991 – until now).  For example in the group you
have barefooted nomads, women, widows, orphans, clan elders, intellectuals,
former civil servants, former soldiers, teen-agers who never went to school, and
every imaginable constituency. The group also include people who are searching
answers to what had happened in the past and are seeking justice for crimes,
e.g. rape, pillage, torture, extra-judicial killings, ethnic cleansing,
misappropriation of lands etc that were committed against them, or against their
relatives and communities.  

With the help of the Somali Truth and Reconciliation Commission (STRC), which
is a body created by the Somalis  with assistance from the United Nation
Security Council, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the
Amnesty International, the group composed a questionnaire, which will have to be
completed by all MTPs. Questions in the questionnaire are based on the
group’s life experiences under the different administrations since the union
between the South and the North in 1960, as it is based on the group’s
perception of what it sees as good or bad characteristics or qualities in a
leader. The questionnaire is designed to help the group decide which MTPs should
be included or excluded in current or in any future inclusive legislative
federal parliament and government. It is also intended to assist the group to
form own judgement about those leaders who may well have to face trial for
alleged crimes if Somalia is to leave the past behind and move forward.

The group developed a point system that will allocate points to answers that
MTPs will give. (see table 1). The future public and political life and future
of an MTP will be determined by the points they score.  

Table 1: Good and bad character descriptions and points

To encourage MTPs give full and honest answers, the groups has guaranteed
their safety and security, as it assured them total privacy while undertaking
the exercise. 

Few months later and all the MTPs had completed their questionnaires
successfully and returned them to the group. The group then analysis the
questionnaire and gives points to the answers in accordance with the point
system that it developed. Based on the answers analysed, the group divides MTPs
into category: A, B, C and D.  It also selects one MTP from each category as a
model of the characteristics of that category. The following tables show the
answers of the model MTPs from each category and points given to them by the
group: 

Category A

The first MTP gives his answers as follows. The MTP:

The group gives this MTP +15 points for good character, and -60 points for
bad character. As chart 1 illustrates the bad character indicators sharply goes
down wards, while the good character indicator hardly reaches 20 points.

Chart 1: Category A

Category B

The second MTP, the sample of the category B has answered his questions as
follows. The MTP:

This MTP has been awarded +75 points for good character, and -10 points for
bad character. As the chart 2 illustrates the good character indicator shoots
up, while the bad character indicator is virtually non-existent.

Chart 2: Category A

Category C

The third MTP is from the category C and here are his answers. The MTP:

This MTP has scored a total of -60 points for bad character and +10 points
for good character.

Category D

The fourth MTP who represents the category D gives his responses as follows.
The MTP:

Good
character                                                                                                      
 Points

This MTP has scored -60 points for bad character and +20 points for good
character.

The Justice and judgement day arrives

Justice is required before healing can begin

Having carefully analysed and considered the questionnaires and the answers
provided, the group releases the results of the exercises in a well attended
international press conference.

Based on the information available to
them, the group discovers that many of the MTPs are in category A, C or D. This
means that they are corrupt officers and officials in the previous
administrations/governments, warlord and their cronies, ex-warlords, and people
who held foreign passports and do not live in Somalia. Their answers indicate
that these leaders are people who, by abusing state power, by condoning
injustices and atrocities committed against people, by instigating bogus clan
wars for personal or political gains, by ordering gun-crazed militia to bombard
civilians and properties indiscriminately, by failing to provide a visionary
leadership, had all played a destructive role that led to the collapse of the
Somali state hence failing the Somali people. Some of them might have even
committed war crimes during or after the collapse of the state. So the question
that the group has to ask itself is how on earth they could trust leaders with
such huge failings on their shoulder, with so many questions to answer, leaders
that are devoid of any vision or creativity that are required to resolve the
many problems of this troubled nation. If the Somali nation is to put the past
behind it and to move forward, shouldn’t those leaders first of all answer some
questions about what had happened and why it happened? And what role had they
played? Are the Somali people so hopeless that the only choice of leadership
they have is the same leadership, which has re-branded it self as saviour?!

The group is very disappointed that very few of the MTPs possess the good and
the ideal characteristics which they see essential for a leader. This means that
leaders in category B – meet the group’s criteria for a leader and its
expectation of what the group would consider as legitimate, trustworthy and
credible leadership. The group names this category as the emerging new
generation of leaders and with caution the group places its faith and trust in
them. However,   depressed and disappointed with the results, the group is very
anxious and nervous about a future with an emerging leadership that has yet to
be tested and tried. The group questions: Will the new leadership be able to
survive in the minefields of the murky business of politics, where treachery,
deception, treason, and duplicity are the main characteristics; and where
honest, fairness, integrity, trust, openness, truthfulness and all other good
qualities had long disappeared?  Will the new generation of leadership be able
to resist all temptations that comes with power, namely: corruption, abuse of
power, personal interest, dictatorship, money, and all other excitements,
particularly when the new leadership may have to work with some of the leaders
in other categories who would use every trick in the book to drag the emerging
leadership down to their level?! Will the new leadership be creative and bold
enough to come up with new imaginative and visionary ways of doing things that
are different from the old ways?  

Conclusion

After a long discussion, deliberation, and much thought, the group comes up
with some conclusions, which it see as pre-condition to any comprehensive and
inclusive political settlement that will hopefully open a new healthy chapter
for Somalia. The group demands that if Somalia with its north and south together
is to move on from the current vicious circle of self-destruction and perpetual
poverty and to heal from the past wounds the following should happen and must
happen soon:

(1) All leaders in category A, C, and D should consider their position as
members of the current transitional parliament.

(2) All those leaders who have been accused of any wrong doings including war
crimes should accept to face trial and then make themselves available to be
tried under a national criminal court that is to be created and run by Somalis
from the North and the South. Justice is required before healing can begin.

(3) The group recognises that, like many developing counties, the Somali
nation suffers from leadership crises, where the leadership in the post-colonial
era is composed of (i) the old guard who some of them are good statesmen, while
others became dictators, corrupt, and even mass murderers, and (ii) the new
emerging generation of leaders who have yet to be tested for their worthiness as
leaders. Unfortunately, some of those emerging leadership (e.g. warlords)
demonstrated their unworthiness by their actions. Therefore Somalis and their
friends and supporters from the international community should understand this
phenomenon and try to work with and through it, for example replacing the old
folk with the new emerging leadership whenever an opportunity arises. Also, the
new emerging leadership should try to break away from the leaders in category A,
C and D because this class of politicians is defunct and is devoid of any new
ideas that could be utilised in resolving the many problems that this nation
faces. The new leadership should try to find own pathway that is based on
vision, courage, wisdom, dignity, integrity and compassion.

Muuse Yuusuf
London, UK,
E-mail: Myuusuf3@hotmail.com