Under article 151, the constitution shall be implemented for a period of three years from its approval in February 1997 and shall come into force fully once a referendum has been held. There was a provision for this interim period to be increased by the two Houses of Parliament, and in early 2000, the two Houses voted that the period be increased by one year. This was primarily to give more time for the completion of the revision of the constitution (before its submission to the nation at a Referendum) and for putting in place the laws and mechanisms for changing the current “representative” democracy in Somaliland to a popular democracy based on the direct elections of the President of Somaliland and the Parliament of Somaliland.