The Somali National League (SNL) has won 20 of the 33 seats available the Somali United party, a new group that shortly before the elections joined forces with the SNL, has won 12 seats. The protectorate's election last week was not distorted by any such technicalities, but the result was hardly less conclusive. At the general elections last year, the Somali Youth League, led by Mr Abdullahi Issa, won 85 of the 90 seats, two-thirds of them unopposed because of the “regrettable technical errors” of their opponents. But the Italians, keeping democratic scruples under strict control, picked their man and stuck to him. Its several political parties and the maze of their tribal ramifications promised a situation of singular confusion. Somalia has virtually governed itself since 1957. Then the Italians came back, uncluttered by other colonial commitments, and more immediately aware than the British that they were working to a fierce timetable. The British military caretakers who took over Somalia during the war exerted themselves to decontaminate the territory from fascist influence by an educational programme that was considerably ahead of anything suggested for the protectorate. But the Italian trust territory has had a clear political lead over the protectorate for which, indirectly, it can thank Mussolini and his imperial dreams. Somalia and Somaliland start off with roughly the same disadvantages both are harsh, hot lands of sand and rock without water, known mineral wealth, industry or anything else that makes life easy. The Somalis are determined that they should go, and there is indeed no earthly reason for hanging on-beyond responsibility for what is left behind. In 1950, the United Nations set a term of ten years on Italy's trusteeship of Somalia, and in June the Italians make their unreluctant exit. The timetable for independence has been written in New York, not in Whitehall. Elected Somali members now dominate a Legislative Council that three years ago did not even exist. On February 17th, British Somaliland had a general election, the second ever held in the protectorate, and a party of swift change won a decisive victory. A GALE of constitutional change is blowing through the Horn of Africa.

Rome total war protectorate