Issue No. 790

Laftagareen's Balancing Act

Much of the federal government's electoral agenda hinges on South West State President Abdiaziz Laftagareen. The regional leader, inserted into his position in Baidoa in December 2018, is the only remaining senior 'elected' non-Hawiye politician still aligned with the federal government. For much of 2024, Laftagareen played a careful balancing act between Addis-- upon which his security depends-- and Mogadishu-- the distributors of his political budget. Where he aligns himself in the coming months regarding the model for South West's long-overdue regional presidential elections could prove the final domino for the growing opposition against Villa Somalia's constitutional and electoral rewrites.

Laftagareen has travelled to Mogadishu on several occasions in recent months to negotiate permission from President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to hold traditional regional presidential elections– but has been rebuffed at each turn. Considering the fury with which Villa Somalia has responded to Jubaland President Ahmed Madoobe holding his own polls in November 2024, it could hardly acquiesce to Laftagareen orchestrating choreographed non-direct regional presidential elections and maintain its rhetoric of direct democracy. Instead, Villa Somalia has insisted that the South West president sticks to its badly compromised one-person, one-vote (OPOV) agenda.

For Mogadishu, the Digil-Mirifle South West president is essential for papering over the perception that this is a Hawiye/Abgaal core government. Without Laftagareen, who remains only due to financial inducement, the National Consultative Council (NCC) and the negotiated reach of the federal government would be limited even further. To carry off its OPOV polls in the coming months, Villa Somalia is attempting to negotiate or forcibly ensure the negligible participation of every major clan and Federal Member State (FMS). To this end, in early February, federal troops were directed to forcibly assert control over Bardheere town in the Gedo region, resulting in deadly clashes with Jubaland Daraawiish. If Mogadishu can pull off its compromised and contentious elections there, it will be able to assert-- though roundly dismissed by swathes of the country-- that it has secured Darood/Marehaan as well as Jubaland representation. 

In late January, meanwhile, National Electoral Commission delegates travelled to Baidoa to reopen the dormant election office there, ostensibly to 'accelerate' the OPOV polls in the FMS. Though the locations of the just 800 national polling stations have not been published by the Commission, it is probable that some could be positioned in Baidoa, Baraawe, Merca, and Huddur in South West State. This would also gift Mogadishu a few thousand Digil-Mirifle votes, allowing it to claim a broader election than reality. But while Laftagareen may accept OPOV elections in Baidoa or Baraawe, what does it matter if they cannot be held in Mogadishu? Former President Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed and allied opposition members are increasingly warned of severe instability in the capital if the federal government continues with its unilateral agenda. 

Though Laftagareen is undoubtedly influential in lending Villa Somalia a veneer of legitimacy, he nevertheless remains tethered to the federal government. Lacking the funding stream from a deep-sea port that his counterparts in Jubaland and Puntland enjoy for their political largesse, Laftagareen is far more financially dependent on Mogadishu. That may be about to change, however, with the announcement between Kuwaiti conglomerate Arabic Holding and the South West administration to develop Baraawe port. The USD 500 million deal will involve the Egyptian engineering firm MYD improving the surrounding infrastructure and roads of Baraawe. Whether this ties the resource-orientated Mogadishu and South West administration closer together or provides Laftagareen the financial independence to chart his own political future remains to be seen.

Still, Laftagareen has remonstrated with the federal government to ensure the Ethiopian military remains across the Bay and Bakool regions, which is crucial for securing Baidoa from a resurgent Al-Shabaab. Relations between the South West administration and Villa Somalia deteriorated in September 2024, when Laftagareen resisted Mogadishu's insistence that all Ethiopian forces withdraw by year's end. Clearly, their withdrawal did not come to pass as Mogadishu and Addis climbed down with the Turkish-mediated Ankara Declaration. Still, Villa Somalia is keeping its cards close to its chest. Despite several face-to-face meetings between senior Ethiopian and Somali officials, there remains no public progress on the troop composition for the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM). What is clear is that Mogadishu wants Ethiopian troops out of Gedo– where it continues its furtive attempts to destabilise the Jubaland administration and wrest key towns from under its control. 

Laftagareen is not invested in democratic alternation or the realisation of OPOV elections in Somalia; instead, he is motivated by remaining in his position even though his term expired over two years ago. He remains a largely unpopular leader, having generally disregarded political outreach to other sub-clans of the Digil-Mirifle, repeatedly prioritising his political survival well past his term expiry date, and emphasised targeting political opponents over Al-Shabaab. As such, he continues to stifle the limited opposition, recently jailing a former MP in Baidoa who was visiting his ill mother because of his criticisms of the regional administration. The influential Leysan sub-clan is also largely divided, but a sizeable militia opposed to Laftagareen remains mobilised on the outskirts of Berdaale, parading in a new uniform just last week. Outside of the FMS, some members of the regional political opposition gathered last week in Mogadishu in a meeting led by the former South West President Sherif Hassan.

Laftagareen was one of the more overlooked beneficiaries of December's Ankara Declaration, which has nominally smoothed over some of the Addis-Mogadishu tensions. It has spared the South West president from having to choose between Somalia's federal government and Ethiopia for the time being. But South West remains in limbo, waiting for Laftagareen to signal where his position on a host of issues stands. They may have to wait for some time; the South West leader has proven himself apt at hedging his bets and riding out political storms. But whichever way the OPOV polls fall in South West, Laftagareen will not want to cede his position, and a more forceful collision with Mogadishu may prove inevitable.

The Somali Wire Team