After disputes culminated in fighting last week, the country’s political system is in doubt.
The highlights this week: Somalia’s political deadlock worsens after clashes broke out last week, U.S. policies block Africans from entering the country as the World Cup gets underway, and South Africa’s president walks a delicate tightrope on immigration in the wake of deadly protests.
Somalia’s Election Crisis
Fighting between Somali federal troops and opposition-allied militias broke out in Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu on June 3, as the country’s political crisis spirals, threatening the future of its electoral system.
Tensions have flared in recent months over delays to Somalia’s elections, originally scheduled for earlier this year, and the highly contested one-year extension to President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s term, which was slated to end on May 15.
Last week’s clashes, which killed one person and injured 55 others, occurred ahead of planned protests for June 4 against the term extension. The demonstrations did not end up taking place.
The Somali government said it restored order through mediation involving clan elders. (Somali society is broadly divided into five patrilineal clans, where elders play a role in conflict resolution and governance.)
Yet official talks between the government and opposition, led by the United States and United Kingdom, have not resumed since they collapsed on May 15. On Sunday, former President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, widely known as Farmaajo, said he would lead a dialogue to try to resolve the political deadlock.
The disagreement has centered on Mohamud’s goal of shifting the country to a one-person, one-vote electoral system. Somalia has not held a direct national vote since a 1969 coup by autocratic leader Mohamed Siad Barre, which was followed by decades of military rule and civil war. After the fall of Barre’s military government in 1991, the country had no effective central government. Since a central state was reestablished in 2012, leaders have been elected through indirect clan-based power-sharing.
In March, Somalia’s parliament passed constitutional amendments to replace the old system—whereby clan elders choose the parliament, which then selects a president—and move to a direct vote. These also extended the mandates of both the president and parliament from four to five years, pushing back elections by a year.
Critics of the clan-based system, including Mohamud, argue that it is corrupt and undemocratic. “This system is too dirty and keeps people out,” one lawmaker, Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu, told Al Jazeera last week. “It needs to be changed.” Moalimuu added that parliamentary seats could be bought for anywhere from $100,000 to $1.3 million.
Opposition leaders, however, reject the move as illegal and demand the reinstatement of the old system. Mohamud’s critics, who have set up a coalition called the Somali Future Council, argue that direct voting is a pretext to entrench the president’s power. They also say it is unworkable due to militant group al-Shabab’s control over parts of the country, even though direct municipal elections have already been held in Mogadishu and South West State.
Former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire, both of whom are fierce critics of the constitutional changes, said government forces targeted their homes during the clashes.
“Mohamud has directed a sustained and indiscriminate military assault with the apparent objective of killing me, former President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, dozens of respected traditional elders, and other political leaders in Mogadishu,” Khaire claimed on X last week.
“This attack is part of the actions of … Mohamud who wants to shed more blood without having a formal term of office, and his time has expired,” wrote Ahmed, who later accused the government of cutting his electricity and water supply following the fighting.
While the Somali government has not directly addressed the claims, it blamed the violence on “opposition group militias.” It also accused both Khaire and Ahmed of leading a coup attempt, without providing evidence.
Similar violence occurred when Farmaajo extended his term by more than a year in 2021. Like Mohamud, Farmaajo argued that it was necessary to change Somalia’s electoral system, which he was ultimately not successful in doing.
“At the core of the disagreement is a conflict between my government’s goal of universal suffrage through direct elections and those who insist on an indirect election model that empowers elites and denies ordinary citizens a vote,” he wrote in Foreign Policy in 2021.
Aside from recent internal clashes, Somalia has long shown signs of a fracturing state. The breakaway region of Somaliland declared its independence in 1991 and has since held separate elections and issued its own passports. In recent years, two states—Puntland and Jubaland—have started to operate independently from Mogadishu, after declaring they no longer recognize the federal government.
Political disputes also distract from counterinsurgency efforts against al-Shabab, security experts warn. And they draw attention—and resources—away from a looming famine, as more than 6 million Somalis face crisis levels of hunger amid severe drought and devastating foreign aid cuts.
Source: FP
