The Problem of Somaliland’s Legitimacy

British Somaliland was not one politically united Somali polity before colonial rule. Britain assembled the protectorate through separate treaty relationships with Somali communities in 1884–86; British parliamentary records later described agreements with elders of five tribes, while the eastern interior later contained the rival Dervish State centred at Taleh. The territory became one British administrative protectorate, but that colonial arrangement did not make its populations one political community. British Somaliland was administered first through British India, then the Foreign Office and, from 1905, the Colonial Office.

The crucial point is therefore simple. The former protectorate provides a historical boundary for Somaliland’s contemporary territorial claim, but a colonial boundary does not prove present political consent. Whether people in Las Anod, Badhan, Borama, Erigavo or Hargeisa authorize rule from Hargeisa must be demonstrated through contemporary political evidence, not colonial cartography.

The events in Sool reveal this problem clearly. Fighting in Las Anod during 2023 resulted in the withdrawal of Somaliland forces and the consolidation of SSC-Khaatumo authority. Subsequent political developments produced institutions aligned with the federal Somali political order rather than with Hargeisa. Whatever position one takes on Somaliland's historical territorial claim, contemporary authority in Las Anod and substantial parts of the surrounding area cannot reasonably be described as deriving uniformly from the Somaliland government. The inhabitants of a territory included within Somaliland's preferred historical map have generated political institutions contesting the very sovereignty that the map is supposed to prove.

Sanaag presents an equally complicated political geography. Somaliland exercises authority in important western portions of the region, including Erigavo and other areas, while eastern and southeastern districts have experienced competing political and security authority associated with Puntland, local forces and other actors. It does demonstrate that political authority across the former protectorate is uneven. A state seeking recognition on the grounds that it represents the population within inherited colonial boundaries must confront the fact that some of those populations are governed through competing institutions or reject Hargeisa's constitutional authority altogether.

The democratic argument requires the same scrutiny. Somaliland has conducted competitive elections, and this achievement should be acknowledged because denying it would weaken rather than strengthen the criticism. The November 2024 presidential election resulted in an opposition victory, the principal competitors accepted the result, and political power changed hands through electoral procedures. They demonstrate that Somaliland possesses functioning electoral institutions across substantial parts of the territory administered from Hargeisa and that an incumbent government can lose office through voting.

The problem begins when this evidence is enlarged into a claim that Somaliland's elections establish democratic legitimacy across the entire former British Protectorate. Elections demonstrate the preferences of the electorate able and willing to participate under the authority conducting them. They do not automatically express the political will of populations living under competing authorities or in districts where elections cannot be fully conducted. International observers reported that voting in the 2024 election could not occur fully or partially in five of Somaliland's 23 districts because of security conditions. That fact does not make the election meaningless. It places a geographical limit on what the election can legitimately be said to prove.

The demographic problem is even more fundamental. The often repeated assertion that the Hargeisa government represents a democratic majority across the territory Somaliland claims lacks sufficient evidentiary support. There is no recent, comprehensive and uncontested population census capable of establishing precisely how many people live within the claimed territory, how many are eligible to vote, what proportion are registered, and what proportion actually participate in Somaliland's electoral institutions. International election observers have themselves identified the absence of reliable census data as an obstacle to determining precisely what share of the potential electorate is represented by the voter register.

Majority rule is a demographic proposition. To claim that a government represents a majority, one must know the population from which that majority is supposedly drawn. A presidential candidate can win a majority of votes cast without thereby demonstrating the support of a majority of the total population, a majority of all eligible voters, or a majority of the inhabitants across every district contained within the state's claimed boundaries.

If significant populations in eastern areas do not participate fully in Somaliland elections, if some districts are administered through rival institutions, and if no reliable census establishes the size of the populations involved, then a claim of democratic majority across the entire former protectorate becomes impossible to demonstrate with precision. The appropriate conclusion is not that Somaliland has no democratic institutions. The evidence shows that it does. The appropriate conclusion is that the territorial scope of the democratic claim exceeds what the available evidence establishes.

Clan authority adds another layer. Somaliland's political order emerged through agreements among clan leaders, political elites, elders and local communities after the collapse of the Somali state. The Guurti institutionalised traditional authority inside the formal constitutional system, while customary elders continued to play important roles in conflict resolution, political negotiation and local governance. This hybrid structure contributed significantly to Somaliland's early stability. It also means that political authority cannot be understood solely through ballots and ministries. In many areas, authority remains negotiated among elected officials, traditional elders, clan networks, local administrations and security actors.

State and clan authority often overlap. Local administration, policing, dispute resolution, taxation, security negotiation and electoral mobilisation may involve government institutions alongside customary leaders. The analytically important question therefore concerns whether central institutions possess sufficient authority and consent to claim democratic representation for populations whose everyday governance may depend heavily on autonomous clan structures.

This should matter particularly when Somaliland presents itself internationally as a democratic nation-state whose legitimacy is self-evidently coextensive with the colonial boundary. The actual political landscape is more complex. Some communities participate deeply in the Somaliland political system. Others maintain more ambiguous relationships with Hargeisa. Some have openly developed alternative political projects. The fact that all were at one point included within a British colonial jurisdiction cannot resolve these contemporary disagreements. Colonial administration created a territorial container. It did not permanently determine the political preferences of every community placed inside it.

The western territories also require precision. Somaliland exercises substantial governmental authority in Hargeisa, Berbera, Borama, Burao and other western and central areas. Any claim that Hargeisa governs only a handful of isolated urban locations would exceed the evidence. It does not demonstrate that every community inside the broader claimed borders gives that apparatus democratic consent.

This distinction exposes the weakness in the strongest version of Somaliland's international argument. Three propositions are frequently allowed to collapse into one another: British Somaliland existed as a legally defined territory, Somaliland today governs substantial portions of that territory, and the majority of the inhabitants of the entire former protectorate therefore democratically authorize rule from Hargeisa. The first proposition is historically documented. The second is supported across substantial areas. The third requires demographic and political evidence that remains incomplete.

Somaliland's case becomes particularly vulnerable when colonial territorial inheritance and democratic self-determination are treated as interchangeable sources of legitimacy. The colonial argument says, in effect, that Britain left a defined territorial unit in June 1960. The democratic argument says that the people inhabiting that unit presently choose the government centred in Hargeisa. The first can be demonstrated with constitutional instruments and colonial records. The second requires evidence from the contemporary population itself. A colonial document cannot supply the political consent missing from a contemporary electorate.

The historical irony is difficult to ignore. Somaliland's international campaign often presents itself as an exceptionally democratic African project while relying heavily upon boundaries inherited from colonial rule. Yet the populations within those boundaries did not experience colonial rule uniformly, did not possess identical relationships with Britain, and do not exhibit uniform political allegiance today. The eastern territories that once contained some of the most determined resistance to British authority are now among the territories in which Hargeisa's political claim faces its strongest contemporary challenges. It demonstrates the danger of imagining that colonial cartography settled political identity permanently.

Somaliland's predicament is therefore less exceptional than its international narrative sometimes suggests. Across postcolonial Africa, inherited colonial borders intersect with local identities, customary authorities, competing political projects and disputes over who may legitimately govern whom. Somaliland nevertheless belongs within this broader history of postcolonial state formation rather than outside it.

The achievement of Somaliland's political project should not be confused with proof of every claim made on its behalf. Hargeisa has built institutions, maintained considerable stability, organised elections and administered substantial territory. These accomplishments are real. The territorial disagreements, competing authorities, clan-based structures and uncertainties concerning the size and political preferences of the population are equally real. A serious analysis has to hold both sets of facts together rather than allowing one to erase the other.

The central problem of Somaliland's legitimacy therefore concerns the distance between what has been demonstrated and what is claimed. The history of British Somaliland establishes a colonial territorial inheritance. Contemporary elections establish meaningful political competition among large numbers of participating citizens. Somaliland's institutions establish administrative capacity. None of these facts, either separately or combined, establishes that the entire population contained within the borders of the former British Protectorate currently constitutes one democratically consenting political community represented by Hargeisa.

Somaliland may represent a compelling political aspiration for many of the people who support it. Political aspiration, however, is different from demonstrated collective consent. The burden of the strongest Somaliland claim is therefore straightforward: if the former British Protectorate is to be presented as a contemporary democratic state, evidence must show that the people across that claimed territory actually authorize the political order speaking in their name. Until reliable demographic information, meaningful participation across the claimed territory and clearer evidence of political consent exist, the assertion that Somaliland's elections establish majority democratic legitimacy throughout the former British Protectorate remains a claim awaiting proof.

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