This popular mandate seemed to establish quite clearly that Somaliland was, in the best democratic sense, indeed a ‘self-declared’ republic (this was the epithet bestowed disparagingly on the country by hostile U.N. officials and T.N.G. supporters who, evidently not being interested in local democracy, declined to send observers).

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 696