Mogadishu – Somali academic and political analyst Afyare Elmi warned on Sunday that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had crossed a “dangerous red line” by extending his mandate, altering the constitution and attempting to reshape Somalia’s electoral system, arguing the moves risk pushing the Horn of Africa nation deeper into political instability.
“President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud crossed a dangerous red line by unilaterally extending his term mandate for one year, changing the constitution, and attempting to gerrymander elections,” Elmi said in a lengthy political statement addressing Somalia’s escalating constitutional dispute.
The remarks come as Somalia faces one of its most fragile political moments in years following disputes over electoral arrangements, constitutional amendments and the timing of the next political transition.
Elmi said Somalia’s modern political settlement was built around the principle of regular transfers of power after the collapse of the military regime that plunged the country into civil war in 1991.
“In Somalia, the necessity of periodic political transitions cannot be overstated,” he said, warning that “greed for power was one of the primary causes of the Somali civil war.”
He argued that Somalis who established the country’s post-conflict political order in Djibouti understood the dangers of prolonged rule and intentionally designed a system in which incumbents could be replaced at the end of their terms.
“Somalis who met in Djibouti and established the Third Republic learned an important lesson,” Elmi said. “They made periodic political transitions one of the key pillars of the political settlement.”
According to Elmi, the repeated political transitions over the past two decades helped prevent wider instability by convincing opposition groups to wait for electoral processes instead of resorting to violence.
“Political forces opposing the government had to wait until the end of the term and did not resort to political violence to seek power,” he said.
The academic accused the president of seeking to dominate the next electoral process through laws and institutions controlled by his administration.
“The president wants to use the laws he unilaterally made and the commission he appointed for selecting the MPs,” Elmi said, adding that opposition groups rejected both the government’s current proposals and flaws seen during the 2022 electoral process.
He said disagreements between the government and opposition now centered on two major issues: the duration of the president’s mandate and who should oversee the selection of lawmakers under Somalia’s clan-based power-sharing system.
Elmi said despite deep disagreements, there remained significant areas of consensus among Somali political stakeholders.
“Universal suffrage and party-based politics remain aspirations for all Somalis,” he said, while noting that all parties still accepted the 4.5 clan power-sharing formula that underpins Somalia’s indirect electoral model.
As a way out of the impasse, Elmi called for stronger international mediation led by the United States and the United Kingdom after earlier diplomatic talks in Mogadishu failed to fully resolve the crisis.
“The talks initiated by the U.S. and UK diplomats in Mogadishu helped a lot, albeit they did not resolve the conflict,” he said. “Now Washington and London should get involved.”
He also urged both sides to avoid escalation, calling on the government to stop “weaponizing security forces, the aviation agency, and international assistance,” while urging the opposition not to pursue a parallel political process that could result in rival administrations.
Elmi proposed a revised indirect election framework in which clan elders would select lawmakers at the state level, while larger delegate-based constituencies would elect members of Somalia’s lower house of parliament.
He also called for election management to be jointly handled by the Federal Government, Federal Member States, civil society groups and opposition representatives in order to restore trust in the process.
“Election management should be a collaborative effort between the Federal Government of Somalia, Federal Member States, civil society, and opposition members,” he said.
