Issue No. 683

Hidden Discontent in the NCC

Last week's National Consultative Council (NCC) meeting dealt with two principal agenda items—the stalled military offensive against Al-Shabaab and the sweeping constitutional amendments to Somalia's Provisional Constitution. The four-day event was much-anticipated, coming several weeks after the most consequential and controversial electoral and governance reform in Somalia in a decade, and amid rumours of growing disquiet among several regional leaders in opposition to Mogadishu. Villa Somalia had already postponed a hurriedly arranged NCC meeting in mid-April due to 'technical reasons,' though it was believed to have been cancelled due to the reluctance of South West State President Abdiaziz Laftagareen and his Jubaland counterpart Ahmed Madoobe to attend, in addition to Puntland's continued absence.

Rather than the explosive scenes anticipated several weeks ago, the NCC meeting was carried off without public fallout, barring one internal sticking point-- the date and means for carrying out coordinated regional presidential polls. The political impasse centred on the future of the 'one-person, one-vote' (OPOV) system that Villa Somalia adamantly supports. Among the Federal Member State (FMS) leaders, there has been a growing view that Villa Somalia is seeking to force an OPOV system to engineer the polls in its favour. Included in the recent amendments to the Provisional Constitution was the formation of a federal National Electoral Commission (NEC) to oversee regional elections, and the notable shift in referring to FMS 'presidents' as 'leaders.' The NEC is likely to lend more influence to Villa Somalia in the formation of electoral registers, the location and conduct of polls, and, by extension, possibly the victors themselves. Moreover, the coercive approach that was wielded to push the consequential changes through parliament has not inspired confidence that Villa Somalia would seek a consensus-driven OPOV system, particularly with the general acquiescence of the international community to the amendment's questionable passage.

The proposed timeline for synchronised OPOV regional elections of November 2024 was always dubious, if not totally unachievable. Predictions for an adequate level of security by that time have long been bleak, and have continued to worsen in recent months amid the ongoing African Union (AU) force draw-down. While the AU and Mogadishu now appear to have settled on maintaining 11,900 AU troops in Somalia post-June 2024, questions of funding and timelines remain in dispute, and the possibility of holding polls in Middle Juba or Lower Shabelle will likely be impossible due to the level of entrenchment of Al-Shabaab in these areas. Subsequently, if some compromised version of an OPOV system does come to fruition, voting will be limited to major urban centres such as Kismaayo and Dhusamareb-- allowing Villa Somalia to claim it has carried out the provisions of the amended Provisional Constitution by holding the first federal OPOV polls in decades.

There is also continuing and significant political opposition to the repeated delays to regional elections that have allowed several FMS leaders lengthy and controversial extensions, particularly Laftagareen and Madoobe. With Villa Somalia's proposed November 2024 election timeline left unmentioned in the final NCC communique, it appears that the question of carrying out regional polls may have been sidelined yet again. These ongoing delays further remain in contravention of negotiated settlements, such as the Baidoa agreement between Laftagareen, the South West State opposition, and the federal government in February 2023, which was to see regional presidential elections held by the end of last year.

Overall, the likelihood of free and fairly contested traditional votes in both South West State and Jubaland remains highly questionable. In March 2024, Laftagareen directed the South West State regional parliament to grant him sweeping new powers, including the authority to declare martial law at will. And Madoobe is apparently following suit, beginning the process of amending Jubaland's regional constitution to allow him to serve a third consecutive term, after well over a decade at the helm in Kismaayo. In this light, while the recent NCC communique offered support for major constitutional amendments made to chapters 1-4, it should not be taken as wholehearted backing for Villa Somalia's full political agenda. Both Laftagareen and Madoobe may be biding their time until they have secured their current positions for several more years before offering more concerted opposition to Villa Somalia. And so, for now, a fragile peace appears to be holding between Mogadishu and the various FMS leaders, but broader questions about the future of Somalia's federal project remain unanswered.

Once again, senior opposition politicians reacted to the most recent NCC communique with fury-- both about the lack of clarity on regional election dates and the FMS leaders' support for the recent constitutional amendments. Abdirahman Abdishakur, leader of the Wadajir Party, slammed the NCC, while former Presidents Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed and Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo condemned the communique. Their opposition to Villa Somalia continues to range from legitimate concerns about the future of federalism to electoral positioning ahead of the 2026 federal presidential election. Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni, now absent from the NCC for well over a year, further criticised the agreement as an attempt to extend the incumbent's terms and undermine the Provisional Constitution.

Greater oversight by Mogadishu of FMS elections is not a guarantee of their legitimacy. Indeed, on nearly every occasion on which Villa Somalia sought to engineer the result of an FMS election, its actions resulted in further instability. Perhaps most notable are Farmaajo's violent engineering of polls in Baidoa in 2019, which brought Laftagareen to power, and his attempt to remove Madoobe from office that same year. While Villa Somalia's current occupants have avoided a similar propensity for civil violence, whatever version of OPOV emerges is certain to be either flawed or compromised, or both. In such an environment, it is little wonder that some of Somalia's most prominent leaders would prefer to retain the traditional clan-based system that elected them in the first place.

By the Somali Wire team